


Fixation

by thelostogg



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 99,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28816185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelostogg/pseuds/thelostogg
Summary: Jou thought it was hard to deal with Seto as a rich bully, but it's even harder to deal with him as a slightly sadistic stalker.ORIGIONALLY POSTED ON AFF.
Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto, Kaiba Mokuba/Mutou Yuugi
Comments: 11
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is complete and was originally posted on AFF. I'm cleaning it up and posting a chapter here each week.

Chapter 1

Jou was glad the bus was running late. He needed time to come up with a believable excuse before he showed up at work with a black eye. Again.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his green jacket and kicked a pebble off the sidewalk. It was his own fault this time. Kaiba insulted everyone, but no one else let the rich bastard’s insults get to them. If Jou had just ignored the Mutt comment as he walked past the taller boy when school let out, he’d be fine. He even would have had time to grab some food before heading to work. Now he was going to have to wait tables on an empty stomach, which was hell at the best of times, with more than his share of bruises forming on his face and torso.

Only a few of those bruises were from Kaiba. The rest were from last week, when his dad had caught him stealing some cash from his beer money. His old man didn’t hit him all that often, just when he was really drunk or Jou had really screwed up, and even then, he’d pulled his punches. But his old man never hit him in the face. More trouble with DFS was a headache he was always keen on avoiding, even when he was shitfaced. 

Kaiba was never so kind. But it wasn’t like he could ask that rich prick for a time out and explain that he’d really appreciate it if Kaiba could just hit him in the chest when he decided to beat the crap out of him.

Maybe he could tell his boss that it had happened in gym. If he could convince his her that he’d just collided with someone during a basketball game, and he was running late because he needed to stay and let the school nurse look him over, he might not be in too much trouble. 

It was worth a shot.

When Jou finally raced into the back of the City Center Café, he was already twenty minutes late for his shift. He clocked in quickly, then ducked into the bathroom to change into his uniform before his boss could see him. He was knotting the strings of his black apron when he noticed that his boss wasn’t waiting for him behind the counter as usual, but was out front, waiting on the tables in Jou’s section. Jou stepped back into the kitchen quickly.

“I am so screwed,” he whispered.

“You don’t know the half of it,” said Honda, rushing out passed him with a loaded tray propped on his arm. “Kaiba’s bodyguard is out front, along with some guy in a suit, waiting for you.”

“What?” Jou felt his world spinning out of control for the second time that day. “That prick wouldn’t actually press charges! He already won the damn fight!”

“Just stay in here.” Honda backed through the double doors. “I’ll tell Haruno-san that you’re here.”

Jou wandered over to an out of the way stool and plopped down, grateful that he hadn’t found time to eat after all. All of the fear and anxiety that he very carefully kept off his face was making his stomach do flips. If there’d been any food in there, he probably would have thrown up at the mere thought of being arrested for fighting with Kaiba. He didn’t even want to think about the hell that he’d have to pay at home when his dad found out. He should have figured that Kaiba wouldn’t hesitate to humiliate him more.

Jou didn’t get to wallow for long. His boss, a petite woman whose temper was large enough for ten women her size, burst through the door screaming. Jou just sat there and listened to her rant. He could feel her breath as she shouted at him. She called him a troublemaker, a hoodlum, and told him that he had twenty-four hours to hand in his uniform or she would take the replacement costs out of his last check. Jou just nodded. It wasn’t the first time he’d been fired, and he knew that Haruno-san was too mad to listen to any excuses he might try to make.  
He vaguely noticed that Kaiba’s bodyguard Roland had slipped into the kitchen, along with a man roughly half his height with short, cropped hair, a pair of wire rimmed glasses, and a classic but well-worn suit. The smaller man caught his eye for a moment, his concern evident.

“I’ll change before I go,” said Jou, heading back to the bathroom where he’d changed out of his school uniform just a few minutes earlier.

The short man in the suit nodded to Roland, who followed Jou without a word.

“What do you want?” Jou asked, half-way through the bathroom door.

“Mr. Jounouchi, I noticed that Mr. Kaiba and you were involved in another altercation. The younger Mr. Kaiba insisted that Doctor Nakamura and I find you at once and make sure that you received medical attention.”

“Mokuba sent you?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Jounouchi, in conjunction with the advice of the Kaiba Corp legal department.”

“Ah. He’s covering his older brother’s ass now, is that it?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir.”

“Well,” Jou smiled brightly, “Tell Mokuba, and the Kaiba Corp legal department, that this bullshit not only gave me a concussion but lost me my job. Hey, maybe your boss can burn down my apartment building next!”

“I’m sorry about the trouble with your boss, Mr. Jounouchi.”

“Yeah, if you’re sorry, then you can do me a favor and get lost. It’s bad enough that I’ve got to put up with Kaiba, I don’t need the charity of some spoiled ten year old on top of his shit.”

Jou slammed the bathroom door behind him and locked it. He took his time changing into his school uniform and folded his work uniform and apron carefully. When he was finished, he stared into the broken mirror above the sink, studying the bruise that was already visible and forcing the tears lining the rims of his eyes to vanish. He was not some cry baby who couldn’t handle losing a job. He would find something else. In the mean time, he’d just blame it all on Kaiba.

When he peaked out the door again, Roland was gone. He left the uniform in the empty back office and let himself out the back door. In the alley behind the City Center, Jou pulled on his backpack and headed towards his apartment, knowing that he really couldn’t afford to waste money taking the bus home at the moment.

“Hold on a minute,” a gentle voice sounded behind him. The short man in the suit was leaning against the alley wall, ignoring the filth of restaurant trash all around him. He was paging through a thin manila file folder. “I’m giving you a ride to my clinic, then home.”

“Fuck off!”

The man smiled and pulled out a cell phone. “Matsuri Yukito is your Family Services case worker, right? If you refuse, then I’ll see to it that you’re picked up by Family Services and in a foster home by the end of the business day, where you will receive medical attention. You chose.” He started dialing. The man’s smile, unlike his threat, was friendly and sympathetic. “I’ve already tried to get your father to sign a permission slip authorizing treatment, and since that didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped it would, I have a duty to make sure that you are assigned a guardian who will get you medical attention, from me or someone else. Or you could just come with me and get it over with. Family Services never has to know.”

“You talked to me dad!” Jou wasn’t sure if he should feel horrified or offended. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Nakamura Tenchi. You can call me Nakamura-sensai, if you’d like. Can you guess what your dad’s response was?”  
Jou shrugged, then thought about the time two years before when he had told his father he needed to go to the doctor because he’d broken his arm.

“Last time I told him I needed to go to a doctor, he threw a beer bottle at me and told me I was a worthless piece of shit and he wasn’t wasting any more money on me.”

The small man nodded slowly. “I’ll count myself lucky then. All I got was an empty beer can. I imagine that bottles hurt quite a bit more. Come on.”

“I ain’t going with you,” Jou insisted, walking passed the man as quickly as he could.

Nakamura pressed the send button on his phone, held it up to his ear, and started to walk away. “Go home and pack then. DFS will be by to pick you up within the hour.”

Jou froze. As much as he didn’t like his dad when he was drunk, his dad was the only real family he had in the world. He as only a year away from being a legal adult anyway, there was no point in trying to take him away from his dad now. Jou didn’t want to imagine how long his dad would last if Jou didn’t make sure there was always food in the fridge and that the bills got paid.

“Just to a clinic?” he asked.

Nakamura lowered the phone. Jou’s hearing was good enough to pick up the Family Services office automatic greeting through the speaker. “Yes. Just to my clinic.”

“No money bags Kaiba or anything?”

“No. Kaiba-sama is my employer, but even he can’t command me to break my patient’s trust. I won’t tell him anything about you at all, or about your dad.” The short doctor strolled towards the end of the alley, confident that Jou was following him.  
On the street, the doctor opened the passenger door to a small black BMW and let Jou climb in. He drove them to a small clinic two blocks from the Domino hospital and then led him through a warren of offices and hallways.

Instead of an exam room, he led Jou to a small office. Despite its size, the office held more books than Jou had ever seen before. They lined the walls and were even stacked on the floor. One stack was next to a small leather chair and, thanks to the addition of a knit doily, had been doubling as an end table. Books covered the desk and were stacked on the wall behind it, right up to the windowsill.

“So what kind of doctor are you?” Jou asked.

“The lucky kind, according to my colleagues. I am the Kaiba’s private physician. I am paid a retainer to be available for whatever care Kaiba Seto or his brother and immediate staff might require. Unfortunately, that means I need to be something of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to medicine. I got the impression, from your dad anyway, that you’ve probably never seen a doctor outside of an emergency room visit or two, is that correct?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, not really. If you had any major medical issues, they would have come to light by now.”

Jou said nothing to that. He couldn’t meet the doctor’s gaze, but he wasn’t going to volunteer anything he didn’t have to.

Nakamura sat down in the small office chair behind the desk and pulled open the file folder he’d been carrying in the alley. Inside was a half page of hand written notes and a blank medical file. “It does mean that Kaiba-sama should have found someone else to fixate on. If you two ever succeed in really hurting one another I know that I can provide him with any care he might need, while you’ve probably got to go home and suck it up. Or, go to work and suck it up. Why don’t you go ahead and sit down.”

Jou sat in the small leather chair and set his bag down between his legs.

“Least I don’t have to worry about work today,” Jou muttered darkly.

Nakamura bit his lower lip and stared at Jou. “That was unfortunate. But it wasn’t just over one black eye, was it?”

Jou shrugged. “I have a hard time keeping jobs.”

“She said you’re always showing up covered in bruises. Is that true?”

“You….” The man already knew about his father, and he seemed confident enough in what he knew that he was ready to report Jou’s situation to Family Services, so there was no point hiding anything from him. “Yes, it’s true. It’s not all the time. Between Kaiba and my dad and the neighborhood I live in, things get rough. And with school, and usually detention for the crap Kaiba pulls in school, and not having a car, I’m usually late about once a week. Much as I want to blame Kaiba, it ain’t all his fault. Hell, he said it himself, I’m too much of a mutt to control my temper when he starts trying to get a rise out of me.”

Nakamura scribbled a quick—and with Jou’s vision, completely illegible—note. “Mutt or dog?”

“Both. Usually it’s Mutt, though.”

“Aha.” Nakamura scribbled another note. “Has your father ever sexually abused you?”

“What?” Jou sat up, shocked by the question. “No! He’s not like that! He gets angry sometimes, but he’s never done anything like that!”

“Okay. Let’s go over a quick medical history, then.” The doctor started with a series of questions that seemed endless. He wanted to know about Jou’s childhood, about major injuries, dental work, vaccinations, his parents’ divorce, his sister’s surgery and even Jou’s grades. “So do you just not pay attention in school, or do you not have time for homework?”

Jou shrugged. “I don’t like to read all that much, it gives me a headache. I try to get the homework done, but it’s all based on the reading, and there’s no time anyway. Reading on a white board or anything far away really gives me a headache, so sometimes I close my eyes in class. And sometimes, when I close my eyes, I fall asleep.”

More medical questions followed. Questions about alcohol, drugs, his non-existent sexual history and orientation. “What’s that got to do with anything,” Jou demanded, not quite confident enough to answer one way or the other.

“Two things,” Nakamura said, still scribbling. “STIs can have a very serious impact on the body, and if you’ve been potentially exposed to any, you need to be tested. If you’re homosexual, an HIV test may be a good idea.”

“That’s a bit outside of the whole cleaning up after Kaiba thing, isn’t it?”

“No. I’ll explain why in a moment.”

“Well, I ain’t had sex with anybody yet, so exposure to STDs ain’t an issue,” Jou assured him. “What’s the other thing?”

“Kaiba Seto is gay,” said the doctor, as though it were the most natural and widely known thing in the world. “Or, rather, I’ve only ever seen him date men. He came out some time ago, although he’s threatened to crush any media organization that makes an issue of it. I’m asking because I can’t help but wonder if his fixation on you, and thus the violence between you, might be due to homophobic tendencies on your part, or possibly a sense of romantic rejection on his part.”

“Ah, you’ve got your wires crossed there, Doc. Kaiba hates me. We’re rivals, although he doesn’t think I’ll ever be good enough to beat him. I guess the only thing he’d admit to is that he’s my best friend’s rival. He knows I can hold my own in a fight, though, and Yugi can’t. If he beat up Yugi he’d just look like a bully.”

Nakamura scoffed. “He is a bully. Don’t bother sugarcoating things with me. Does he insult your friend? Talk to him at all? Or just duel with him?”

“They pretty much just duel.”

Nakamura nodded. “Jounouchi-san,” the doctor steepled his hands in front of him. “I am bound by the same oath of confidentiality towards Kaiba Seto as I now am towards you. I cannot tell you anything he may have said to me in confidence in my role as a physician, not that he ever says anything at all, but… Well, from my dealings with him socially, I can tell you that the only two people he talks about on a regular basis are you and his younger brother. I don’t know the names of any of his brief romantic interests, and he has no friends, but he talks about you often enough that I know you have a sister named Shizuka who lives apart from you and would have lost her sight completely if you hadn’t been determined to help her. I did not use the term fixated lightly. He is fixated on you. Honestly, I was hoping that this discussion might give me the clue I need to help him find an outlet for that fixation. One that is less likely to cause either of you broken bones. If you’re straight, I can’t imagine Kaiba-sama would stay in this pattern you two seem to have fallen into. If you’re gay, I am confident that he would pursue you in a romantic context. The only explanation I’ve come up with is that he’s unsure about your orientation. I can very easily see him reverting to the social skills of an eight year old and acting out as a way of getting your attention, just so he can find out if you’re gay.”

“You mean like the little boy pushing the little girl out on the playground because he likes her?”

“Exactly.”

“That don’t make sense. Kaiba’s a genius. He has the social skills to manipulate business executives and politicians, there’s no way he’d do something that stupid around someone like me.”

“Ever heard the phrase Too smart to change a tire? Being a genius does not mean that Kaiba knows how to interact with people socially. But enough of that. Come on, let’s go into the exam room.”

“There’s more?” Jou groaned. “It’s already eight o’clock!”

Nakamura looked down at his watch. “Hu. Well, my wife’s going to kill me. Let’s hurry.”

Jou grabbed his backpack and followed, exhausted but unwilling to put up with a Family Services agent no matter how long this took. Nakamura took him through several more hallways, all now dark and empty, and into a small exam room with a paper-covered table. “Have a seat on the end of the table, please.”

Jou did as he was told.

“Okay, obviously you’ve got the contusion on your right eye and right cheek. Where else are you injured?

“Kaiba hit me in the chest a couple times, but I already had some bruises there, so it looks worse than it is.”

“Any other injuries?”

“No.”

“Are you suffering from a headache or feeling lightheaded?”

“Yeah, but that’s nothing new.”

“Hm. Take your shirt off please.”

Jou slid his uniform jacket and t-shirt off, then sat hunched over, with his elbows resting on his knees.

“It wont work,” Nakamura said, barely glancing at him.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re used to hiding injuries. Stop. I can see them clearly, even with you sitting like that, so stop.”

Jou grumbled, but relaxed.

Nakamura poked and prodded each bruise on his face and chest, had Jou rotate his shoulder, twist at the waist which hurt like hell, and then announced they would need to take x-rays. Nakamura took the x-rays himself, since there were no nurses in the now empty clinic. “We really should get you in for a cat scan….” he said as he brought the x-rays of Jou’s chest back. “You’ve broken two ribs. It’s hard to tell from the scans, but I’d guess they’ve already started to heal. About a week old, I should think. With an MRI, I could get a better idea of how they’re healing.”

Jou said nothing.

“Come on, hearing and vision tests are next.”

“What?” Jou panicked. “I can hear and see fine. You don’t need to worry about checking that.”

“Didn’t I say stop trying to cover things up? You’re very easy to read, you know,” Nakamura said again. “Two things make it quite obvious you’re lying. First, I don’t believe that you see fine for an instant. You track everything, including my location in the room, by sound. I moved when we were taking your x-rays. You spoke to the spot where I had been standing until you heard me reply. You report having headaches when you read, which means headaches when you strain your eyes. Second, blunt trauma to the head can cause visual and auditory problems. Have you ever had your eyes checked, Jou?”

Jou said nothing. He folded his arms and turned away.

“You really are easy to read. No wonder he likes you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How bad is your vision?”

“I don’t know, alright. I’ve never had it checked, but…. Well, I do read, even though it hurts. When Shizuka first lost her sight, I read up on the condition. They say it can run in families, and I’ve always been so worried about it that I’ve never gone in for an eye exam.”

“They say?”

Jou shrugged. “There was ‘dis article in some magazine….”

“I thought you said your sister’s condition was fairly rare?”

“That don’t mean people don’t write about it.”

“Well, you shouldn’t self-diagnose based on articles that appear in popular magazines. They’re seldom accurate or detailed enough to even begin to present a clear overview of most medical conditions.”

“This one was.”

The doctor chuckled. “Really, what was the source? A health magazine or Web MD?”

Jou pressed his lips together when a low growl managed to escape from his throat. He put up with Kaiba thinking he was stupid, but he wasn’t going to take it from a Kaiba lackey. “Don’t treat me like an idiot! It was in the New England Journal of Medicine, Winter 1997! The condition is a build-up of spinal fluid pressure that pushes against the visual cortex, it inhibits blood flow to the optic nerve! Once blood flow stops, there’s nothin’ they can do to repair the nerve damage, but if they catch it soon enough they can release the pressure and stop the damage from happenin’. I had to go to the library at Tokyo University to get a copy, and I had to read an entire physiology textbook to understand the damn thing, you know!”

Nakamura smiled brightly, like a man who was trying to keep from laughing. “Gotcha. He can manipulate executives and politicians, but I have a feeling you challenge him more than you give yourself credit for. Still, just for your own information, there’s a lovely program you should look into, it’s called Interlibrary Loan. They could have just photocopied it and faxed it the library in Domino for you. I imagine even your school library could have gotten a copy for you.”

“They could have?”

“Yeah. It’s not the type of thing most high school students would know about, mind you. Not really the type of thing they’d ever use. Let’s get those ribs taped, do a quick eye exam, and get an idea of how bad your vision is. I don’t have the equipment or training for a thorough eye exam, just the old eye chart and a pirate eye patch from Halloween, but it’ll do.”

“Fine. Guess I might as well get it over with.”

As nine o’clock came, Nakamura’s cell phone rang. “Yes, dear?” he asked, without looking at the caller ID. “No, I’ve been out of the office all day, I’m at the clinic…. It’s going to be a while…. Yes, please. Ah, bring three larges, will you? Yes, three. Thank you, love. Bye.”

Half an hour later a petite and beautiful woman, dressed in a western style business suit and high heels, strolled in carrying three large pizzas. Nakamura smiled at her and continued to wrap athletic tape around Jou’s chest, ignoring Jou when he hissed and whimpered.

“You’re actually with a patient?” the woman looked horrified. “I am so sorry, I should have knocked before coming in. Please, forgive my intrusion.”

“I’ll be finished taping this in a moment. Would you mind waiting in my office?”

“Of course,” she bowed slightly and stepped out of the room, shutting the door.

When Jou’s ribs were taped and wrapped in an ace bandage, Nakamura sat up and stretched. “Come on, food, then eye exam, then we’ll talk about follow ups for the ribs and concussion and what to do about your eyes.”

“There’s nothing to do about my eyes,” Jou said glumly following Nakamura back to his office.

“Sakura,” Nakamura kissed the woman on the cheek, “There is someone I would like you to meet. This is a friend of Kaiba-sama’s.”

“A friend of Kaiba-sama’s,” the woman’s smile cooled slightly, as though she knew that anyone who claimed Kaiba had friends had to be conning her.

“I’m not a friend of Kaiba’s,” Jou insisted.

Nakamura opened his mouth, then sighed heavily. “I believe that is still open for debate.”

“Not really. I’m closer to an enemy than a friend, I know that.”

Nakamura shook his head quickly. “You’re wrong. Kaiba-sama destroys his enemies. Believe me, I have been on retainer to the Kaibass since before Kaiba Gozoboro was ki—died. Since before Kaiba Gozoboro died.” The small man’s permanent smile faltered for a moment.

Jou didn’t even try to keep his face neutral. Nakamura had seen the way Jou reacted to his slip, had seen the lack of surprise. The woman didn’t seem surprised by it, either.

“I’ve seen him destroy enemies who are a threat to Mokuba,” Jou insisted, “But aside from them, he prefers to humiliate people.”

Nakamura stared at him. “Have you ever seen him waste time humiliating someone when it wasn’t part of the process of crushing them?”

“Uh, personally, yes. All the damn time. But knowing him, he’d just say I’m not worth the effort, the self-centered bas—" Jou bit his tongue when he saw the woman’s face twitch.

“Either way, he destroys his enemies. Jounouchi, Sakura is Kaiba-sama’s personal accountant. She works quite closely with him.”

“Oh, I apologize, I ah… I spoke inappropriately about your boss. Please forgive me.”

“Jounouchi Katsuya?” she asked, glancing between Jou and her husband. “The Jounouchi Katsuya?”

Nakamura smiled and raised both hands, as if trying to offer an explanation and failing to find the right words.

The woman strolled towards Jou and looked at him critically, hissing in sympathy at the sight of his black eye and bruised cheek. “No wonder he was in a good mood all day.”

“You mean Kaiba?”

“Didn’t double check my reports and walked out with a smile on his face thirty minutes earlier than normal.”

Jou shook his head, hardly able to comprehend the implications of what the Nakamuras had revealed to him. Not only was there a chance that Kaiba was attracted to him, but the prick might actually get off on hurting him. “He really is a sadistic fu—" Jou caught sight of Sakura’s raised eyebrows and shut his mouth again. She just giggled.

“Here, Jounouchi, you eat, I’m going to go find that eye chart. Sakura, would you give me a hand?”

Nakamura and his wife left and Jou took two pieces of pizza. He was so hungry he could have eaten an entire pizza himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to be that impolite. Granted, the doctor had blackmailed him into coming here in the first place, but after six hours of talking and hanging out, Jou found he didn’t mind the blunt man quite as much as he had initially. When the couple returned, Nakamura was carrying an old eye exam chart, but his wife looked pale and furious. Like she had just seen a ghost for the first time and instantly decided that the existence of the supernatural was a deep, personal insult.

Sakura put three pieces of pizza on a paper plate and shoved them into her husband’s hands. She grabbed another plate and loaded it with another three pieces. “Jounouchi, please eat more. If it helps, you should know that I put it on Kaiba’s expense account as revenge for making my husband work late.”

Jou smiled and nodded a little. “I suppose I don’t mind exploiting Kaiba’s money a little,” he admitted, taking the pizza.

“Jou, I’m going to ask you another queston,” Nakamura said slowly. “If you would like to answer in private, that’s fine. When was the last time you ate?”

“Wednesday,” Jou said, trying to chew and swallow the bite in his mouth as inconspicuously as possible.

A soft sound, halfway between a sob and a sigh, escaped from Sakura. Jou didn’t need to be able to see perfectly to notice the tremor that ran through her, or the way her fists clenched. “Eat,” she said with a soft smile. “I’ll run down to the vending machine and buy us each a soda.”

“Oh, here,” Jou dug through his pocket and passed her a dollar. “Pepsi, if you don’t mind.”

Sakura’s stared at the money, the anger burning in her eyes flaring like wildfire for a moment, but then it smoldered and died entirely. “Alright.” Perfectly manicured fingers took the dollar.

The eye exam did not go well. As ten o’clocked rolled around, Nakamura looked up from a reference book with an astounded smile on his face. “Good news, Mr. Jounouchi!”

“Yeah?” Jou asked, leaning over the doctor’s shoulder.

“This says you’re not quite legally blind. Your vision is seriously impaired at a distance, but it’s not so bad up close. At least you can see something.”

“I guess that could be good news. It means regular glasses might help, right?”

“No,” Nakamura said bluntly. “I don’t have the equipment to tell whether you’re just near sighted or if this is a result of the optic nerve issues. Based on the location of the headaches, though, I’m guessing you’re going to need the same surgery your sister had, and you’re going to need it within the year.”

“Great,” Jou sat back in the leather chair, both hands covering his eyes and he tried to come to terms with the news.

Sakura, who had stayed during the eye exam and had been pretending to go through paperwork of her own, looked up curiously. “How expensive is the surgery?”

“About fifty thousand, American,” said Jou. “My sister’s surgery was done in the States. We were both born there, and our mom thought the surgeons there were more familiar with the procedure. I don’t know what it’d be here.”

Sakura smiled brightly, looking at her husband with raised eyebrows and an expectant look on her face.

“I’ll make some calls Monday morning and get you a solid number, along with the other paperwork.”

Jou shook his head. “Nah, don’t bother. I’ve gotta figure out how to tell my old man I lost my job, and then find another one. Every dime I make goes to keeping us afloat. It’s not gonna happen.”

“Oh yes it is,,” said Sakura, springing to her feet with more energy than anyone should have at the end of the day. “Kaiba Corp maintains a litigation fund, money set aside to pay for, or to settle, law suits. That includes torts committed by our executives. Get me a figure and I’ll get you a check.”

Jou laughed, shaking his head. “But it’s genetic. It’s got nothing to do with Kaiba hitting me.”

Nakamura turned to his wife. “My medical opinion is that the condition was probably….” he sat down on the corner of the desk, “aggravated?” He paused while his wife nodded. “Aggravated by the trauma inflicted by Kaiba-sama’s punches. You likely never would have needed the surgery, but for Kaiba-sama’s actions.”

“But he didn’t cause it,” Jou insisted. “If the problem wasn’t already there, the punches wouldn’t have made me lose my vision.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sakura insisted. “There’s a legal principle called the Egg Shell Skull Rule. Basically, it means that if you hit someone, you’re responsible for any actual damage you cause, whether they’ve got a normal skull and just suffer a bruise or a skull that can break as easily as an egg shell and you end up killing them.”

“What, are you a lawyer?” Jou scoffed.

“Yes,” she said simply. “I specialize in tax law and international copyright, but I’m authorized to settle potential tort claims on Kaiba Corp’s behalf, if our in-house medical expert recommends settlement. If our own doctor says we’d lose in court, there’s no point in having to pay a hundred times the settlement amount after an expensive trial where Kaiba-sama will no doubt be dragged through the mud and made to look like an ignorant teenage bully.”

“No,” Jou insisted, struggling to get to his feet. “Do you know how much that bastard would gloat if he thought he hit me hard enough to make me go blind? I’d never live it down!”

“You’re going to put maintaining your pride over saving your vision?” she looked at him like he was insane.

“Does Kaiba have to know?” Nakamura asked, unrolling his shirt sleeves and re-buttoning his cuffs.

Sakura’s mouth opened slightly, her eyes shifting back and forth as though reading a document right before her eyes. “Ah, no,” her smile returned. “Given his notoriety, he’s always the subject of lawsuits. I lump the settled claims together each year. He goes over the R & D budget with a fine-tooth comb, but whatever money is left over from the litigation fund at the end of the year is just put into employee year-end bonuses. It’s completely written off. I doubt he would notice unless I brought it to his attention, so I just won’t. There, problem solved.”

“I really don’t think it can be that easy. It doesn’t even sound legal, ta be honest,” Jou insisted.

“It’s sneaky,” Sakura admitted, “But not illegal. Besides, no one at Kaiba Corp wants to deal with him moping around for weeks again, so there’s no way I’d let Tenchi tell him he actually hurt you.”

“Moping?”

“You are the one who ended up out of school for a week when he knocked you down that flight of stairs last year, right?”

“Yeah….” Jou rolled his eyes.

“He moped around the office shouting at people for the whole week, muttering about how he couldn’t believe you were such a wimp. He felt absolutely terrible about hurting you.”

“People don’t insult someone if they feel bad about hurting them.”

“Kaiba does if he doesn’t want to admit he’s feeling guilty. He rather over-compensates because he’s worried that any sign of concern will be viewed as weakness. Either way, that’s settled. Can we call it a night?”

“Yeah, I think we’re done. I’m just going to give Jounouchi a ride home, dear.”

“Jounouchi, would you mind if I tag along? I hate driving in the dark.”

Jou shrugged. “Don’t worry about giving me a ride. I can walk. It ain’t that far.”

“No,” Nakamura insisted. “I’m going to milk that DFS threat for all I can get. You’re accepting a ride home.”

Jou grabbed his backpack and followed the older couple out of the clinic. “You gonna black mail me into getting the surgery, too?”

“If it comes to that, yes,” Nakamura said honestly. He hit the keyless entry button on his car. Jou, determined to show that he at least had some sense of manners, held the front door open for Sakura.

On the ride home Jou was surprised by how comfortable he felt with Doctor Nakamura and his wife. The man had been a bit unorthodox throughout the day, but Jou was glad that he was able to chat and make jokes with the older doctor. Sakura was easily one of the most charming women Jou had ever met, making small talk and telling stories about Kaiba’s business exploits that were only marginally appropriate. All in all, Jou laughed more during the ride home than he had in days. He even pretended not to notice the way Sakura’s lips pursed when Nakamura pulled up in front of his apartment building.

“Jounouchi,” Nakamura hesitated, taking a deep breath, “Are you going to be alright tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s a Friday night. My dad ain’t going ta be home until the bars close, and I’ve got all weekend to start looking for another job.”

“Here,” the doctor held out a tiny pill bottle.

“Ah,” Jou tried his best not to cringe. “I don’t like to take any drugs. I don’t like to be too spaced out.”

“It’s just prescription strength ibuprofen. It’ll help with the pain and swelling.”

“Oh, thanks. And, I know Mokuba put you up to this and all, but thank you.”

“Well, we’re not done yet. Come by the clinic Monday after school, I want to check the swelling around your eye and by then I’ll have some more information about what this surgery is going to involve.”

“Thanks, Doc. Ma’am, thanks for the pizza.”

Jou headed upstairs, wasn’t terribly surprised to find the door to the apartment had been kicked in again, and quickly searched the apartment to make sure it was empty. He didn’t bother trying to figure out if anything was missing or broken. The place was always trashed anyway, and anything left in the apartment that was worth anything would have been pawned for alcohol ages ago by his own dad. Everything that he owned that was worth anything was in his backpack. He checked to make sure the bars on his bedroom window were in-tact, wedged a wooden chair under the door handle, stripped down to his boxers and went to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The following three weeks passed in an blur for Jou. Aside from school and trying to find a new job, he had met with the Nakamuras again on Monday, confirmed that Kaiba Corp’s litigation fund would definitely cover the surgery, and then tried to be good-natured about Sakura’s insistence that he join them for dinner. Despite the obvious pity in Sakura’s eyes when she looked at him, Jou couldn’t help but like them both. Nakamura was quiet, unassuming, and unfailingly honest, especially when Jou didn’t want him to be. He had all of the social tact of a two-year-old who blurts out embarrassing facts about his parents in public, never noticing the harm done or the strange looks sent his way. His wife could act like the demure homemaker as well as any woman in Japan, but underneath the quiet, professional exterior, she was loud, opinionated, and had enough tact to know when to keep quiet and when to viciously bite someone’s head off.

She had insisted, in a sweet voice that Jou knew meant sheer hell if he refused, that they needed to hire Jou to take care of their house and yard since she was too busy with Kaiba Corp to manage their sprawling garden. She was always there while he worked, though, trailing after him to discuss the homework he inevitably ended up doing on her patio table. For the first time ever, Jou was able to understand some of the material without having to struggle through a textbook he could hardly read.

Unfortunately, the things the Nakamuras told him about Kaiba made every day at school a creepy power struggle and guessing game. He found himself watching the brunette out of the corner of his eye, keeping an eye on his body language and even listening to the pace of his typing as he taped away on his laptop keyboard.

During study hall, Jou began to pick up a pattern in the pace of Kaiba’s tapping. He sat two rows up and to the left of Kaiba, and he was bored and tired, so he tended to stretch, relax, and sleep away the hour. But when he reached his arms high over his head, Kaiba’s typing slowed down. 

Jou began experimenting. Rolling his head from side to side while he stretched made the tapping slow down again. 

Curious, he turned a contented sigh into a low, sleepy moan. The tapping stopped instantly.

Jou wanted to shout, to laugh, to jump up and down and announce that he’d figured Kaiba out, but through sheer strength of will he managed to stay in his seat. He was glad Kaiba couldn’t see more than his back, though, because he knew there was nothing he could do about the grin that had plastered itself to his face. Of all the people in school, Seto Kaiba was actually paying attention to him.

When he got to his next class, he began to wonder why Kaiba watching him made him happy. He really wanted to blame it on Nakamura. 

Jou had realized he wasn’t straight when, at fifteen, he’d noticed that his best friend Honda looked hot sitting astride his new motorcycle. Trying to picture some well-endowed chic in the same position just made his attention fizzle. But he’d never thought about Kaiba like that. 

Now, though, thinking that Kaiba could actually be paying attention to a low class nobody like him made him giddy.

Jou knew better than to start acting like a schoolgirl with a crush. He was probably reading too much into something that was a complete coincidence, thanks to Nakamura’s comments. The most likely outcome was that he was going to end up getting more offended and hurt the next time Kaiba took a swing at him. 

And there would be a next time, Jou was sure of it. Just because he could distract Kaiba with a moan didn’t mean that Kaiba was going to start treating him like he was a human being. Still, he might experiment a bit more the next time Kaiba decided to pick on him.

After the last bell rang, Jou hurried to his locker and filled up his backpack. He was going to the arcade with Yugi, Anzu, and Honda, then going to the Nakamura’s to trim the juniper trees Sakura kept complaining about. He hurried to Yugi’s locker where he found Yugi and his other friends gathering their things. Anzu and Honda were on the other side of the hall.

“Hey, Jou!” Yugi beamed at him.

“Hi, guys,” said Jou, draping an arm over the smaller boy’s shoulders, pulling his away from his locker towards their friends. “How’d everybody’s last classes go?”

Anzu grinned. “Me and Yugi’s went okay,” she glanced sideways at Honda, “But Honda’s still upset over that history test this morning.”

Honda had a sour look on his face. “I have every right to be upset! I think my decent grades this year just went down the toilet. I couldn’t get through that book for history no matter what I did! And that essay test was totally unfair! Every other test this year has been multiple choice! There is no chance we are ever going to need to know Plato in real life!”

“You could have signed up for a current events class instead,” Anzu told him.

“Yeah, remind me not to follow Yugi into every history class he takes for fun when we get to college, I never want to have to study anything that dull again. At least I know I can count on Jou to be with me on this!”

Jou shrugged. “Actually, I feel pretty good about that test. And, you know, after thinking about the material, I can see where it would have more applications than just ancient history.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Honda kicked the linoleum at his feet. “You actually read the book.”

“Most of it,” Jou lied. He hadn’t even bothered opening the damn thing, but thanks to his new boss’s wife, he felt he had a pretty decent grasp of the subject anyway. Having Jou to take care of the yard apparently freed Sakura up to focus on cooking, which she had never learned how to do, in the evenings. So, while she tried to figure out how to cook something other than rice, she talked about Plato’s Republic from memory. She had quoted entire sections while he listened. It was nice to be able to think about the book without the headache that came from squinting at the text.

“I have to agree with Honda, Jou,” Yugi said softly. “I read it, but it’s definitely something I’m never going to use again. I mean, I get the idea, there’s got to be an upper class, a middle class, and a lower class, but beyond that, it seemed like a waste of time to me too.”

Jou had brought up the same point with Sakura, and she had laughed at him. “You know, Yug,” I think it was more of an analogy about the makeup of individuals than it was about government, ta be honest. Not really parts of a city at all, but just parts of who we are as people, parts of the soul that we’ve got to keep in balance to be happy. You know, our basic hunger and physical needs to keep us going, our courage and spirit so that we protect ourselves, and reason to rule over both of the others so we don’t go around doing stupid stuff like stealing food or having mass orgies or something.”

“Didn’t the Greeks have mass orgies?” Yugi asked, with a look that suggested his smile wasn’t an innocent as Jou always assumed.

“I don’t know, I wasn’t there,” Jou laughed, ruffling Yugi’s hair. “Come on, we going to the arcade or what?”

Yugi shuffled his feet, still looking confused. His normally pale skin had gotten a few shades whiter. “It wasn’t about social structure at all? Not about economic class?”

“I don’t know, maybe I’m just reading too much into it. I mean, Plato talked about dividing his republic up, but it was divided up based on what a kid’s talents were, not how much money their families had. Each kid was assigned to a caste based on which element of their soul was strongest, since that caste was where they’d be happiest. It wasn’t a competitive thing or a social thing. And the whole point was to make everyone happy, not just the guys on top.”

“Oh no,” Yugi’s head dropped all the way down to his chest.

“Oh, come on Yug’! I didn’t mean to make you doubt how you did on that test! Come on, let’s go play! There’s supposed to be one of the new miniature versions of the holographic duel system on display at the arcade, I want to go check it out.”

“You mean the duel disk Kaiba’s supposed to release soon?”

“Yeah.”

Yugi’s eyes lit up again. “I can’t wait to see that! Let’s go!”

The day at the arcade should have been perfect. Jou actually had money for games and a burger, Ygui’s good mood was just as infectious as always, and, thanks to the ibuprofen Doctor Nakamura gave him, Jou made it through the entire day without being in a lot of pain. His black eye was gone, and the headaches that always came towards the end of the school day were hardly noticeable. Even Honda cheered up a little bit as he kicked Jou’s ass in a game of pool.

His ribs should have been healed, but the previous weekend he’d made the mistake of refusing to give his dad money for beer. Doctor Nakamura had re-taped his chest while Jou sat at the doctor’s kitchen table, sampling Sakura’s failed attempt at chocolate chip cookies. They had blackmailed him into spending a few nights in their guest room, and Nakamura made Jou wear a bulky back brace until Thursday. He’d only agreed to let Jou take it off when Jou promised that he wouldn’t be exerting himself or going anywhere near his old man for a few days. To keep that promise, Jou was looking forward to spending the weekend wandering between his friends houses and helping Sakura brainstorm landscaping ideas.

Then the atmosphere in the arcade chilled noticeably. Around them the laughter quieted down, whispering started, and a few people filed out of the arcade. Glancing around, Jou noticed a very uncomfortable Mokuba trying to slip out of a circle of bodyguards, each one shaped like a professional wrestler and wearing matching, charcoal suits.

“Gods, you’d think Kaiba would let his brother have a little breathing room….” Honda muttered.

“Yeah. The poor kid’s never going to be able to make friends if he’s surrounded by an army of bodyguards all the time,” said Yugi.

Jou nodded. “Hey, Mokuba! They’ve got one of your brother’s holographic chess games, you want to play?”

Mokuba’s eyes lit up brightly. “Jounouchi! Yugi! Hi guys! I’d love to play. Do you know how to play chess?”

Jou waved his hand. “I’m no good at it, but I know the rules. How about the winner plays Yugi, then you can both teach me how to play better?”

‘Sounds great!” Yugi jumped up from the racing game where he’d just maxed out the high score.

Five games of chess later, the back of Jou’s head felt like someone was trying to pry his skull open with a crowbar. He hadn’t won a single game, but he was learning a lot and having fun cheering both of his friends on. He wasn’t about to sacrifice one of the few chances he’d have to hang out with everyone just because of a bit of pain.

To everyone’s surprise, Mokuba and Yugi seemed evenly matched. Even when Yugi shifted into his game-mode, Mokuba kept up with him. With a mischievous smile that reminded Jou of his older brother’s trademark smirk, Mokuba typed in his last command and moved one of the little horse pieces towards Yugi’s king.  
The words ‘Check Mate’ flashed across the display in neon blue.

“Well done Mokuba!” cheered Yugi. He clasped Mokuba’s hand, sincerely congratulating him.

“Thanks! That was a great game! Can we play again?”

“Sure.” Yugi nodded once. The gesture lacked the innocent enthusiasm Jou was used to seeing in the smaller boy. The sixth game started on a more serious note.

The way Yugi shifted between the two personalities sometimes worried Jou. He had read a bit about multiple personality disorder, and he had noticed the change often enough that he assumed that was the only possibility, but he never said anything because he didn’t want to bring up whatever trauma had caused his friend to break from reality and construct this other side of himself. Jou was constantly baffled by how different the two sides of Yugi’s personality could be. Everything that Jou loved about Yugi—his optimism, his joy, the evil little smile that snuck up on him whenever he saw chocolate—was all gone when the other Yugi was in control.

He often felt like he was cheering on a stranger.

Jou knew that his friend was aware of the change, and he spoke about the things that happened when he was the other Yugi. He just had to trust that Yugi would explain it all eventually, and in the meantime, Jou was content to wait and just be there for his friend. Mokuba had gotten a serious look on his face when Yugi changed, so Jou guessed that even the younger boy recognized what was happening too.

“I fail to see why you’re bothering to pay attention,” an icy voice said from right behind him. “This game has a few more rules than checkers, you know.”

“Nice to see you too, Kaiba,” replied Jou, not bothered to turn away from the game.

Jou heard the taller boy take a deep breath. Kaiba stepped forward and stood beside Jou with his arms folded across his chest. “Would you like me to explain each move to you, Mutt?”

Jou kept his face straight and bit back the retort that came so automatically after the last few years of trading insults with the brunette.

“Ah,” Jou heard the laughter in Kaiba’s voice. “I see. The mongrel is trying to actually learn how to play chess! Well, that explains why you can’t think of a response. With your limited mental capacity, even a relatively simple game must be overwhelming.”

Ignoring the insult and carefully controlled mocking tone in Kaiba’s voice, Jou noticed that the other boy actually sounded angry and frustrated underneath the cold bravado.

He really was going to try to be polite, to hold his tongue and not say anything. But some habits die hard. “Actually, I was just awed by the fact that your eleven-year-old little brother just managed to defeat Yugi, while you have never managed it once.”

“I’ve never played chess against Yugi!” Kaiba snapped. “From the looks of it, he doesn’t have much of an aptitude for the game, so I wouldn’t waste my time. Who do you think taught Mokuba how to play, Mutt?”

Kaiba sounded so defensive that it took everything Jou had not to laugh. Laughing right now would probably get him shoved into the holographic display table, and it would definitely ruin a fun opportunity to make Kaiba squirm. 

He was probably going to get his ass kicked for what he was planning, but he was going to do it anyway.

Jou pulled his hands out of his pocket, reached his arms high over his head in a languid stretch, cracked his neck with a moan, and slipped closer to Kaiba as he relaxed his arms again. He heard Kaiba’s breath catch. He leaned up on his toes, stopping when his mouth was just a centimeter away from Kaiba’s ear, and whispered, “Just keep telling yourself that, Kaiba.” 

When the other boy didn’t move, Jou inched closer so his lips ghosted over the shell of Kaiba’s ear. “I’m sure Mokuba can help you beat Yugi eventually...” 

When Kaiba didn’t explode, Jou leaned a fraction of an inch closer and took a deep breath, almost licking his lips at the scent of cologne and cinnamon that radiated from the other boy. He let his tongue dart out just far enough to skim the skin in front of Kiaba’s ear. “Damn, you taste as good as you smell.”

Jou didn’t have the nerve to push Kaiba more. He was going to have to make a run for it to get out of the arcade as it was.

He met the other Yugi’s eyes, mouthed a quick apology, then bolted for the door. He took off towards the school, running as fast as he could and not daring to look back. He wove in and out of the downtown crowd, jumped over a kid’s skateboard and dodged through four lanes of slow moving traffic. He was about to duck into an alley that led to the back of the school track field when his shirt caught on something solid and he was yanked backwards.

Kaiba, his suit jacket open and a furious look on his face, held Jou by the collar of his school uniform and half-dragged, half-carried him into the alley.

Kaiba slammed Jou up against the brick wall, grabbing both of his wrists and pinning Jou’s body with his legs. “Bad dog, bad!” Kaiba snapped. He shifted Jou’s hands above his head and held both of Jou’s wrists in an iron grip. “Someone needs to teach you a lesson about respecting people’s personal space.”

“Look who’s talking,” Jou glanced down meaningfully. Kaiba sneered and pressed Jou tighter against the wall. His chest ached, but at the moment he was so flooded with adrenaline that he didn’t care. Jou couldn’t keep his eyes from widening in panic as he realized that the wallet he always noticed pressing into his legs when Kaiba pinned him down wasn’t quite where anything in Kaiba’s pocket was supposed to be.

Kaiba smirked and grabbed Jou’s throat with his free hand, forcing his eyes up but not squeezing hard enough to hurt him. Jou already had a headache from watching Yugi and Mokuba play chess, so trying to focus on those blue eyes just an inch away from him was almost as painful as his cracked ribs. He had to shut his eyes to try to block out some of the pain. The feel of the other boy’s breath against his lips was overwhelming, demanding his attention in spite of the pain. Something in the back of his head told him he should be struggling, he should be trying to escape, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

A chuckle came from Kaiba’s throat. “You pulled that little stunt back there on purpose, didn’t you, Mutt?” The hand on his throat slipped down to his collar bone, slipping beneath the collar of Jou’s shirt and caressing his skin. “You’re just begging to be taught a lesson, aren’t you?”

“Kaiba, I was just fooling around,” Jou coughed.

“Hu,” Kaiba chuckled again. “Interesting choice of words….” The hand on his neck ghosted over his chest, slipped under the hem of his shirt, and grabbed his hip with strong, pinching fingers. Those fingers trailed over Jou’s waistband and traced the outline of Jou’s rapidly growing erection. Kaiba began to stroke him through his jeans.

“Moan for me,” Kaiba whispered. Jou could feel Kaiba’s breath on his lips with each word.

“Mr. Kaiba, sir,” an out of breath voice sounded from the entrance to the alley.

“Fuck,” Kaiba hissed.

“Sir, you’ve got to be at that fund raiser in forty minutes.”

The hand on Jou’s cock withdrew. Jou felt Kaiba’s weight shift back and opened his eyes just in time to see Kaiba draw his fist back. Jou actually heard a crack as Kaiba drove his fist in his chest. Kaiba dropped him and turned away.  
Jou wasn’t sure what it was that made him so weak. Maybe it was the stabbing pain, the way the blow drove all of the breath out of his lungs, or the hormones and racing heartbeat from Kaiba’s touch, but Jou collapsed into a pathetic heap at Kaiba’s feet.

“If you can’t learn to mind your manners, I’ll have to get you a shock collar.”

Jou gasped, his lungs refusing to function.

“I told your brother to finish his game, Mr. Kaiba,” Roland said quickly. “He is still at the video arcade with the car.”

“Fine.” Kaiba strode away, his suit jacket flaring around him as he walked.

Instead of following, Roland pulled out his cell phone and made a quick call. When Jou tried to struggle to his feet, Roland gently pushed him back down and arranged him in a sitting position, leaning against the wall. “Don’t move, I’ll have someone come give you a ride home.”

“Fuck off,” Jou coughed.

“Just stay put.” And then Roland was gone.

Jou managed to fall over, straightening out his body to try to take the edge off of the sharp, stabbing pain that forced him to keep each breath shallow. He felt like he had to cough, but when he gave in to the urge, the pain was strong enough overwhelm him. The world around the edges of his vision began to fade away until all he could see was a single cracked brick in the wall about eight feet above him. He should have been afraid, he should have been panicked about losing his sight entirely, but for that brief moment, he didn’t feel anything at all.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

When he woke up, he thought he might actually have lost his sight altogether. He opened his eyes, but all he could see was a soft white light. He wasn’t in any pain and he was wrapped in a comfortable warmth. For a moment, he wondered if Kaiba had actually managed to kill him. That thought brought a sad smile to his face. It would really suck if Kaiba ended up killing him right when he had finally figured out what Kaiba’s problem with him was. Of course, most of the things in Jou’s life didn’t feel fair, so he couldn’t expect his issues with Kaiba to be any different.

Someone nearby was singing softly, an old American country tune that Jou hadn’t heard since he was a very young boy. It was an old Johnny Cash song about spending an entire career on a car assembly line to steal enough parts to build a Cadillac. It reminded him of quiet sunny days fishing off of the pier in New Jersey, where his parents and grandpa would sing Johnny Cash songs all day long to make him laugh. It conjured up the unique salt and sewage smell of the American ocean, and the taste of real American pizza. The memory brought a smile to his face, despite the fact that he couldn’t see anything.

“Dad?” Jou whispered.

The singing stopped, only to be replaced by a yawn. “I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to wake up.”

“Dad? Where am I? What happened?”

“You’re in the hospital. The police said somebody must have jumped you in an alley on your way to work. That doctor said you crushed a lung and had some kind of seizure. He said you’ve been working for him, running errands and doing yard work and shit. I swear I remember his face from somewhere, but I had it in my head that he was some kinda social worker. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t exactly polite the first time I met him.”

Jou chuckled. His dad never sounded that coherent when he was drunk. Did he remember that he was the one who broke Jou’s ribs? Not that it mattered. His dad was sober now, and he was there at Jou’s side. Jou wasn’t going to say anything to ruin it. “He does kind of have the social worker look, doesn’t he?”

“You lucked out, having a boss like that. He said when you didn’t show up on time, he went looking for you, figured you got distracted at the arcade. If he hadn’t found you, Gods, Katsuya, you’d be dead. He was there with you through the surgery, and he even talked to the hospital about the money. I guess the bill is taken care of. I can’t believe I almost lost you….”

“It’s no sweat, Pop. I’m still here.”

“Look, Katsuya, I know I ain’t never been the best father. I know I lose it sometimes, and I ain’t going ta blame in on the alcohol like some kind of coward. I want you to know that I’m sorry, and that I’m glad you’re alright.”

A calloused thin hand covered Jou’s own.

“Also, I’m… You know, your history teacher came by the apartment all worried about you? He said you aced some test for the first time, and he was worried that the change in behavior might mean problems at home.” Jou heard his dad laugh and knew that if he could see his old man there wouldn’t be a bit of humor in his face. “I’ve really fucked things up for you, haven’t I?”

“No, Dad. It’s not your fault I can’t stay awake through math or science.”

“No, hear me out. It is my fault. I… I ain’t had a drink in a few days now, and I’m starting a new job down at the docks on Monday. I’m going to try to make things right, Katsuya, I really am. I’m going to be there to make sure you do your homework and shit like that.”

“Dad….” Jou didn’t want to remind his dad that he’d said all that before. Every time something serious happened, his dad would be scared into sobriety for a while. And for a while, things would be good. Then a month or two would go by, his dad would start to relax, and decide to bring home a six pack to unwind after work, and start talking about how he was definitely going to stay in control this time. It was times like those that reminded Jou that, no matter how bad things got, his dad was still in there somewhere. Unfortunately, he’d lost count of how many times his dad had resolved to clean himself up.

“Anyway, Katsuya, you know I ain’t crazy ‘bout the police. I don’t think they could do anything anyway, bunch of over-paid lazy bastards. But some of the guys around the neighborhood, they’re worried about you. Did you get a good look at the guy who attacked you? Do you know who he was? What he looked like?”

Guys around the neighborhood meant Jou’s old gang. Rumor had it that they were running errands for the local Yakuza now, and despite the extortion and criminal activities, the Yakuza has always looked out for the folks in Jou’s neighborhood. Jou might have left the old gang behind, but he was still a local kid and if someone from outside their small section of streets was responsible, the local Yakuza would want to know. More importantly, the local boss had been the one to give Jou little errands to run when he was a kid, small jobs to keep him out of his dad’s sight when things were bad. The Yakuza saw themselves as the only source of justice for those on the fringes of Domino society. Jou knew that if his dad ever did kill him, the local boss wouldn’t let his dad live long. That had a comforting thought, when he as little.

“I got smacked in the back the head,” Jou said honestly, remembering the way his head had bounced off the brick wall. “After that, I don’t remember a whole lot. Why can’t I see anything?” He raised his hands up, slowly touching his eyes. All he felt over his eyes was soft cloth.

“Right,” said his dad, his tone almost relieved. “I’m going to go tell the nurse you’re awake. She might be able to take the bandages off. That doctor of yours said your eyes would need to rest for a few days, but you’ve been out for nearly a week, so it should be fine.”

“A week? I’ve been unconscious for a week?”

“Let me go get the nurse.”

It took the better part of a day to actually get the bandages taken off his eyes. Various needles and tubes had been inserted into his body to make sure he had food and water, they all had to be taken out, and then Jou discovered that stinging burns had formed everywhere any of the bandages or surgical tape touched him. The nurse who took off the bandages apologized and said she hadn’t noticed how red the latex made his skin. Three different doctors came in and introduced themselves, apologizing for his not being able to see them yet. He didn’t have the heart to tell them it didn’t matter, that he would have had to tell them apart by the sound of their voices even without the bandages.

They told him that he was lucky, that he would need to be in the hospital for at least another week to heal, they told him that the hemorrhage he suffered was related to an underlying condition that had been aggravated by the repeated trauma to the back of his head. 

Each doctor repeated that exact phrase so carefully that Jou wondered if Sakura had written it out on an index card, in case they forgot it.

Doctor Nakamura himself was the one to finally take the bandages off of Jou’s eyes. Jou felt a tiny pair of scissors run up the side of his head, cutting the rolled gauze. Then the gauze were slowly rolled off of his eyes. It took a moment for Jou to realize just how much the world had changed. Before, a dark filter seemed to cling to the world around him, peppered with empty spots that made everything gritty and hard to make out. Reading had always been a chore because the individual letters tended to blur together into small dark shapes. Now everything was clear and sharp. The evening sun was pouring in through the open blinds of the hospital room, making the entire world seem to sparkle.

“Better?” Doctor Nakamura asked with a small smile.

Jou couldn’t even find the words to describe the sight. He could only nod.

“I’ll check your stitches and let you get some sleep.” Nakamura pulled aside an open section of Jou’s hospital gown and examined a dark line of stitches just below Jou’s breast bone. He covered it with a latex-free bandage, then helped Jou sit up and pulled aside a small bandage on Jou’s head.  
Jou was surprised that it didn’t pull his hair. “You didn’t shave my whole head, did you?”

“No,” said Nakamura. “You’ll want to get it all shaved off though, it looks ridiculous at the moment.”

Jou groaned.

In a seat by the foot of his bed, his dad laughed. “You’ve been getting a bit shaggy anyway, boy.”

“I like my hair long. It made it so I didn’t get in trouble for sleeping in class.”

“That won’t be a problem. You won’t be going back to school this year,” his dad said simply. “Doctor’s orders, boy, six weeks off. Since school’s out in a month, there’s no point in worrying about it.”

Jou felt his stomach drop. “Six weeks? I can’t go back to school? But that means I’ll have to do the whole year over again! I won’t be able to start my Senior year with my friends! I’ve got to finish school!”

“Jounouchi,” Nakamura’s smile was replaced by a sympathetic, and unfortunately very knowing, frown. “There is only way I will release you to go back to school before six weeks have passed. If you file a police report, hire a lawyer, and file for an injunction and restraining order against the people who hurt you, I will sign a release authorizing you to return to school.”

People, Jou noticed. Not person, but people. Kaiba and his dad. The idea of telling the police, and the world, that Seto Kaiba and his dad had beaten him up, not once but hundreds of times between the two of them, made Jou’s face grow pale. He didn’t want to go to a foster home or have to deal with his dad going to jail. He couldn’t imagine facing his friends and classmates again if they thought, after all the times he’d been the one to start things with Kaiba, that he had run to the police for a restraining order. No one got a restraining order against a rival. Everyone would call him a coward if he did it. It would also mean giving Kaiba the chance to gloat that he had put Jou in the hospital.

And to top it all off, before Kaiba had punched him that last time, Jou had been too turned on to think straight. He would bet money on Kaiba feeling the same way. From what Jou could remember, Kaiba hadn’t hit him that hard. He’dhad hardly touched him, in fact. If Jou hadn’t been hurt already, he’d have laughed it off. Jou was sure that Kaiba had just reacted to avoid looking like he was molesting Jou in a dark alley. Even now, the memory of Kaiba’s aroused body pressing his into the wall made Jou blush. As sick and twisted as Jou knew it was, he wanted another chance to be pinned up against a wall by Kaiba. If he filed for a restraining order, after all the shit he and Kaiba had put each other threw over the last three years, Kaiba would assume it meant Jou wasn’t interested in him. He absolutely could not get a restraining order.

Jou shut his eyes and laid back, too ashamed by his own thoughts to look at either his dad or Doctor Nakamura.

“I expect that you could take some summer school classes and still enroll with your friends for your Senior year,” Nakamura said carefully. “Sakura was hoping you’d be available to help with some brick mosaic, but of course, we know your education must come before work.”

“Doc,” Jou’s dad stood up from the chair, “Could you give me and my son a moment alone?”

“Of course,” Nakamura bowed and left the room, leaving the door wide open. Still relying on his hearing more than his eyes, Jou noticed that there were no footsteps echoing down the hall. Nakamura didn’t go far.

“Katsuya, who was it?”

Jou met his dad’s gaze and was relieved to see that his dad wasn’t angry. “That rich prick, Kaiba.”

“The one you were suspended for fighting with last semester?”

“Yeah.”

“So what’s the big deal with telling someone? Sounds like that bastard deserves some bad press.”

Jou had seen this coming. His dad may have been half-American, but he was an old-fashioned working-class man at heart. All Jou had to do was put this in the right context. “The big deal is that then he’d win! I ain’t ever backed down from that bastard and I’m not going to start now! Usually I can hold my own just fine, this time he hit me in the head and everything went dark. The next time I see him I”m going to kick his rich ass into next week! I can’t do that if I go whining for a restraining order like some girl! I’m no coward,” Jou said, echoing sentiments he’d heard from his dad over the years. “I am not going to do something that’ll make everybody in Domino think that I’m afraid.”

He knew he won as he saw his father nodding while he spoke. For a few moments, his dad stared at him then grinned. “Well, I guess I’d do the same. Can’t fault you for that. But don’t think you’re getting off easy, boy. You’re going to make up the time you miss in summer school, and if you told your boss you’d help him this summer, I expect you to honor that commitment, you got it?”

“I got it, Pops.”

“Good. I’m going to head home and get some sleep. You may have slept the week away, but I’m exhausted. Your friends have been leaving messages asking about you. I’ll let them know it’ll be alright for them to visit tomorrow.”

“Thanks Dad. See you tomorrow?”

“Yup. G’night, Katsuya.”

Doctor Nakamura returned as soon as Jou’s dad left. Just as he did the first day Jou saw him, he was holding another manila file folder. “So….” He took a deep breath, the shut his mouth.

“Did I really have a seizure?” Jou asked.

“No.” Nakamura looked at his notes for a moment. “Hemorrhage, actually. You would have been permanently blind if we hadn’t operated when we did. You also compressed your left lung. You were lucky not to puncture it. Roland saw the whole thing, he saw Kaiba-sama punch you. I would have expected the cracked ribs to break completely under the force. If it had, you would be looking at six to eight weeks in bed, not just out of school. You were lucky he pulled the punch.”

Jou looked away, too ashamed of the memories of his encounter with Kaiba to meet Nakamura’s gaze. If Roland had told him about the punch, he probably told him about watching Kaiba feel Jou up, too.

“The circumstances weren’t ideal, but bringing you in as an emergency patient allowed me to bypass getting the authorization from your father to treat you. It worked out alright, I think.”

“Yeah, but now I’ve got to go to summer school….”

Nakamura pulled the chair Jou’s father had sat in closer to the head of the bed. “I think summer school is your best solution. It is my medical opinion that there is nothing healthy about Kaiba’s interest in you, for you or him. You cannot keep interacting with him like this while your body is trying to heal. It’s aggravated your injuries and, since it’s the only social interaction Kaiba has outside of his career, it’s inhibiting his social and emotional development.”

“What social and emotional development?” Jou muttered.

“Exactly. Right now I think that it’s imperative that you do not see him again until you are completely healed. If you can promise me that you can completely avoid contact with him, then you can probably go back to school in another week or so.”

“He’s in five of my classes,” he pointed out. “It’s not like I can change my schedule right before finals.”

“Exac—" Nakamura had started to nod and stopped, looking shocked. “What? Which classes?”

“English, literature, classical history, gym, and math. Oh, and study hall. I guess he’s in six of my classes.”

“English is your first language, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Advanced placement makes sense there, but literature, history, and math? What math class?”

‘Pre-calculus. I usually get the theory by listening to the lectures, and there’s never a lot of reading in math,” Jou explained.

“Jou,” Nakamura shut his eyes, suddenly looking much more exhausted than he had before. “Kaiba is required to attend high school because his family services case worker thinks it’s necessary for proper social development. He took calculus, on the university level, when he was fourteen. He received extensive tutoring in classical, Japanese and Western literature. He speaks fluent English, along with Chinese and French. And, for three years he made me write notes insisting that he had exercise-induced asthma to get out of gym. I didn’t realize quite how obsessed Kaiba-sama hass become.”

“Are you saying he’s stalking me?”

Nakamura chewed on his lower lip, serious considering the question. “I don’t know the extent of his behavior. If nothing else, I think it’s clear that he has a crush on you. While his approach to getting your attention is not typical, it is very much typical of Kaiba Seto. He researches everything before acting, and I would guess that he positioned himself in your classes to observe you. It’s entirely possible that he picks fights with you to test your response to various types of stimulation. What’s that look for?”

Jou tried to school his features, but the cringe he felt had gone through every inch of him and there was no way not to look freaked out. “Do you have idea how dirty that sounds?”

“That sounds dirty?” Nakamura pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh. “I guess that answers one question I had. You really were telling the truth about being a virgin.”

“Knock it off! If that stimulation involved feeling you up in a filthy alley, you’d think it sounded dirty, too!”

“Alright, I’m sorry,” said Nakamura, still chuckling. “But, it sounds like you can’t possibly avoid him and go back to school. Even if you changed your classes, after your last altercation, he won’t back off. Do you think you could manage to do the work if a friend brought it home for you?”

“Home’s worse than school,” Jou reminded him.

“Oh, I wasn’t suggesting your home. Sakura wants to adopt you.”

Jou laughed for a moment, then stopped when he saw the serious expression on Nakamura’s face. “I…. I can’t,” said Jou, the regret in his voice obvious. “My dad’s a great dad when he’s sober, and if I’m not around he wouldn’t even bother taking care of himself. He doesn’t eat unless I leave him food. I can’t.”

“Summer school, then. If you work hard you might be able to actually learn the material you’ve had trouble with because of your eyes, and it’ll keep you out of the house.”

“I just want to finish the year,” Jou insisted. “I just have to get through high school, I don’t need to actually learn this stuff. But I suppose it would make things easier at home.”

“You don’t plan on going to college?”

“Can’t afford it. Even if I could, there’s no way I could get in with my grades.”

“If that’s your choice,” Nakamura shrugged. “You might want to consider taking the entrance exams anyway, and maybe the American college entrance exams, just so you have the option if you change your mind.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Alright, get some rest. I’m keeping you here for another week at the least.”

“Another week!”

“At the least,” Nakamura repeated, “So get used to it.”

“There’s no way my dad’ll let me stay here that long.”

“I’ve documented your injuries, Jou. If he takes you out of here without my permission, I’ll press charges and he knows it.”

“He knows you saw?” Jou asked, horrified.

“I made sure he knows,” said Nakamura, his voice low. “I also put you in a recovery room right next to the nurse’s station and requested a uniformed security officer be at the nurse’s station when your dad is visiting. I didn’t point that out to him, but I’m fairly certain he noticed.”

“Oh no….”

“Don’t bother being dramatic,” Nakamura said with a grin. “I have worked for Kaiba-sama for too long, I’ve learned a bit about being manipulative.”

“Hey Doc,” said Jou, adjusting the bed so he could lay down. “Could you hold on a second?”

Doctor Nakamura’s smile returned. “Of course, did you have more questions?”

“ Kinda. Are you sure about Kaiba? I mean, that he could have a crush on me?”

“Ah…. Well, the gestures Roland described from your last meeting with Kaiba-sama aren’t really that hard to interpret. It’s the best explanation I can come up with for his behavior that includes his conduct in the alley. If you’re uncomfortable with it, you really do have to be honest with him. Anything else and you’ll just encourage him.”

“Well, see, I’m not sure if I’m uncomfortable with it. I don’t know if I’m….” He couldn’t even say it.

“A homosexual?”

“No, that I’m pretty sure about. I just mean, I don’t know if I like him, you know?”

“That complicates things. If you were straight, I’d suggest you get a girlfriend. That would put an end to his attentions in an instant. But since you’re not, that plan will never word. If you found a boyfriend, Kaiba-sama would likely see that as an encouraging sign and simply change his focus to drive away the competition. In fact, any competition would probably result in an increase in violent tendencies—male or female. Did anything happen, before your fight in the alley? Something else that made you finally believe me?”

“I believe he’s a sadistic pervert, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s wasn’t in question. Nor was it the question I asked you.”

Blushing like mad, Jou told him about his conversation with Kaiba in the arcade. Nakamura set his face in his hand and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “Does he often go to the arcade with his brother?”

“Well, he didn’t used to, but for the last few months they usually show up in the afternoons.”

“Every afternoon, or the afternoons when you’re there with your friends?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like I follow him around.”

Nakamura sighed. “Please tell me about your entire day, every detail, and try not to leave anything out.”

So Jou did, start to horrible finish, including his experiment in study hall and going to the arcade with his friends, the headache after watching Mokuba and Yugi play chess, and the chance he took when he whispered in Kaiba’s ear.

“But you don’t know how you feel about Kaiba-sama’s attention?” Nakamura looked incredulous. 

Jou was too sore to turn his head completely. And it didn’t matter. He was pretty sure the blush that rose through his body extended all the way to his ears, so Nakamura would see it no matter what he did.

“Jounouchi, there might be an easy solution. Flirt with him.”

“I can’t do that!” Jou pulled his knees up to his chest, hugging them tight. “He practically raped me in that damn alley, I don’t want to encourage him. I don’t want anything to do with him!”

“Then tell him that. No arguing with him, no fighting, no whispering in his ear. Tell him you’re not interested, in a public place where he can’t kill you, and then ignore the temper tantrum he throws afterwards. And, I promise you, there will be a tantrum.”

Jou shook his head. “I can’t do that, either. I don’t know if I’m interested in him or not….”

“Okay, this is easy,” Nakamura sounded frustrated. “Follow your potential courses of action through to the logical conclusions and evaluate how each makes you feel. The first option is that you flirt with him, see what happens, maybe end up getting a few more broken bones before you two give it up and sleep together. The second option is you tell him you’re not interested, and you ignore his taunts and insults until he gives up and moves on. Which option freaks you out more? Dealing with the fallout of intimacy or him moving on?”

“Him moving on,” said Jou honestly.

“There you go, then. You’re interested in him. That doesn’t make your attraction healthy, but that’s an entirely different issue to analyze.”

“So how do I…?”

“No,” Nakamura stood up quickly, both hands raised in front of him, and headed for the door. “This conversation is getting too weird. You’ll have to find those answers on your own, from movies and porn, just like everyone else.”

Jou choked and ended up coughing, his eyes bulging. “Eww! You’re a doctor, you’re not supposed to tell me to watch porn!”

“Good night, Jou.”

Jou shook his head then squirmed down into the blankets.

Nakamura popped his head back in a moment later. “Oh, Sakura’s become obsessed with that mosaic walkway. She said she’s already talked to you about it, but if you ever think that it might be easier for you to manage work and school without having to walk home, you’re welcome to stay in our guest room.”

All of the shame Jou felt when faced with Sakura’s too obvious charity came flooding back into his head.

“Just when you think it’d be more convenient. She mentioned something about what a relief it will be not to have to worry about a lawn any more, and something about water features and planting new trees.” The doctor looked slightly horrified. “It sounds like more work than I want to be stuck with.”

“You won’t be.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd forgotten how much I loved broody, logical Seto.

Chapter 4

Seto Kaiba only worried about his little brother and his company. It was a rule that had shaped his young life, and he had no intention of deviating from it for the sake of some upstart mongrel who throught far too highly of himself.

When Jou didn’t show up at school on Monday after their little chat in the alley, Seto was not worried. He was not concerned when the blonde idiot skipped the entire week of school. He did not stop typing when he overheard the Mutt’s friends talking about how no one had seen him since he left the arcade.

After eight days without seeing Jou, he’d gone to the City Center Café for a cup of coffee. The coffee wasn’t quite as good as what his secretary usually brought back from the espresso stand across from Kaiba Corp, but it was decent, and it was on his way to work. At least, it was on his way to work if he had Roland drop him off at the park and walked the eight blocks back towards Kaiba Corp on his own.

He sat down at a small table in the corner where he had a good view of the restaurant and poured over the business section of the newspaper.

A petite woman brought him his usual black coffee immediately and set a small paper menu down with the cup. “Welcome, welcome. We’ve got some fresh croissants this afternoon, and our lunch special is spring onion soup and vegetable tempura. Would you like to look over the menu, or will coffee be everything this afternoon?”

“Coffee is fine. But I’d also like some information from you, if it’s not too much trouble. A boy named Jounochi Katsuya works here, doesn’t he?”

The woman’s smile twisted into a cruel sneer. “Worked here, you mean. He didn’t have the nerve to list me as a reference, I hope.”

Seto kept his face passive and processed the new information quickly. It wasn’t that big of a surprise that the Mutt had managed to get himself fired again. “He didn’t leave under good circumstances, then?”

“Hardly. Sir, I am never one to speak poorly of people, but that young man is not fit to work in a café, much more in a reputable office. He was always wandering in late, sporting new bruises and ripped clothing. He is a hoodlum.” The woman shook her head and did her best to look sad. “Still, I gave him as many chances as I could. I always hoped he might turn himself around if someone just gave the opportunity…. But I can’t have some ruffian waiting tables with a black eye or broken lip, with who knows what trouble following him. If he thought that I would give him a good reference after all the times he frightened away my customers, well, I don’t know what that urchin was thinking. I promise you, it would be in your best interest to tell him to look for work elsewhere.”

It was very seldom that Seto had to bite the inside of his cheek to maintain his neutral mask. This time he didn’t even notice he was doing it until the taste of blood filled his mouth. The Mutt hadn’t gotten himself fired. This time, it was Seto’s fault. He clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to curse and smack himself on the forehead.

He was quick to regain his composure. “Thank you for the information,” Seto said quickly.

“Happy to help,” the woman replied. She bowed before returning to the counter.

Seto left money for the coffee and tip on the table then hurried out, leaving the coffee untouched.

After ten days without seeing Jou, he was not panicking. When he happened to skip work and wander three miles out of his way, and up four flights of apparently random stairs to the Mutt’s apartment, he did not panic when he found that the door had been broken open. The door was still on its hinges, but the wood around the frame was shattered where the deadbolt had ripped through the wood. Cracks in the lower half of the door made it obvious that someone had kicked it open.

Seto pushed the door open without knocking, wandering into the gloom and stench of the Jounouchi home. It wasn’t much of a home, even as apartments went. There was a small main room with one corner covered in linoleum and miniature kitchen appliances, then two small, sparce bedrooms and a single bathroom with a tiny shower stall. Garbage, beer bottles, and unwashed clothing littered the floor of the main room.

Seto glanced into the first bedroom and decided, from the smell of cigarette smoke and the foot-deep pile of beer cans that covered the floor, that the room must belong to Jou’s father. The other room was remarkably clean compared to the rest of the apartment. It contained a small futon pad shoved into one corner, a low table and a half-broken dining chair covered in torn vinyl upholstery. Unlike the rest of the apartment, trash in Jou’s room had actually found its way into a garbage can. Bandages, empty bottles of Tylenol and empty physician’s samples of prescription strength ibuprofen were in the trash, along with empty plastic water bottles and two empty take out containers.

There were no blankets or pillows on the futon, but there was a worn-out sheet that had somehow escaped the grime of the rest of the apartment. There was also nothing else. No television, no game system, no Duel Monster posters or extra cards, no textbooks. In the closet there were two sets of second-hand school uniforms, an pair of worn out blue jeans, and three t-shirts, including two that Jou had won by ranking as a finalist in Duel Monster tournaments.

Seto sat down in the vinyl chair for a minute, taking in the bare, unlived in look of the room. It looked more like a prison cell or monastery than a teenage boy’s bedroom. How had the Mutt managed to come up with the entry fees for Seto’s tournaments if he couldn’t even afford clothes or a blanket? Seto ran his fingers over the clean sheet stretched across the futon and then left Jou’s room. As he left, he noticed a splatter of old blood across a small section of the door frame and the wall beside it. A few blonde hairs were stuck in the wood.

Seto clenched his fists and hurried out of the apartment, trembling with a rage that he didn’t want to feel. He had no right to be angry at whoever had slammed Jou’s head into that wall. He might have done worse to the blonde himself. But at that moment, his guilt was crushed beneath a burning desire to slowly torture whoever had hurt his Mutt. The logical part of Seto’s mind reigned him in, reminding him that getting into a brawl with a boy his own age was close enough to normal that no one would cause a stir over it, but killing a middle aged impoverished drunk wouldn’t be so easy to brush off as normal teenage aggression. Even if he was an abusive asshole.

Seto called for Roland and waited on the steps outside of Jou’s apartment, his anger radiating off of him in cold waves like dry ice and making even would-be muggers take a few extra steps around him. At his next tournament, Seto resolved to waive the entry fee for high ranked duelists, and maybe to offer cash prizes for the top five finishers instead of just the top two. He would talk to Pegasus, too, and get the fee waiver made an official rule for future tournaments.

He had Roland drive passed Yugi’s game shop, just in case the Mutt had been staying there. Every other member of Yugi’s little friendship cult was in the front room of the game shop, all looking worried. Seto caught a glimpse of Jou’s sister Shizuka, her eyes red with tears, but no sign of the blonde.

Seto was ashamed when, after eleven days, he threatened to fire Roland when the security expert refused to tell him if he knew what happened to the blonde that day in the alley. He convinced himself that was a question of the loyalty he expected from his personal staff to stifle his own shame.

By the time twelve days had passed, Seto was at his wits end from not worrying about Jounouchi.

As he waited for school to be dismissed for the day, he typed out a methodical to do list for the afternoon. He would call every hospital within twenty miles and ask for Jounouchi’s room number. If each hospital told him they had no Jounouchi registered, he would check with every jail within fifty miles. If that failed to produce the Mutt, he would go break each of Otogi’s fingers. Seto was sure that dog-suit joke was just an excuse to give the dice-obsessed freak with some kinky mental imagery to jack off to. It was possible the man had found the injured blonde and taken him home to molest him. After Otogi, Pegasus was next on Kaiba’s list. If the old letch didn’t have the Mutt, Seto would go back and search the alley and surrounding streets, again. As a last resort, he would do the unthinkable—he would ask for Yugi’s help.

It shouldn’t come down to that, of course. Seto was nothing if not thorough. He already had a list of hospital and jail phone numbers incorporated into his spreadsheet. He would find the Mutt before the day was out. Seto hadn’t slept in the last three nights because he had not been worrying so damn much.

Seto knew that there was a slight chance that the Mutt was avoiding him. If Jou was upset, or even disgusted, by what Seto had done, he knew that Jou wouldn’t want anything to do with him again. Their arguments and fights would be at an end. Still, Jou wasn’t the type of person who got upset or disgusted without shouting it out for everyone to hear, and he hadn’t shouted for Seto to stop, or even to let go of him, in the alley.

He shouldn’t have hit Jou. He’d regretted it within sixty seconds, but having Roland walk up on them freaked Seto out more than he wanted to admit. He was sure that Jou would have recognized that, though. If Jou was angry about the punch, he just would have hit Seto with a sucker punch when they were both back at school on Monday. It wouldn’t be enough to make the blonde avoid him without trying to get one last shot in first.

It was much more probable that the stupid Mutt was badly hurt or in more trouble than he could deal with on his own. If the Mutt was hurt, there was at least a fifty percent change that Seto himself had been the one to hurt him, and that meant Seto had to find him and deal with it. Seeing the blood on Jou’s wall had at least allowed him to put off that storm of guilt until he knew the blonde’s fate.

He hoped that Jou was just in trouble. Seto focused on the clock in the corner of his laptop screen and sighed. 

If Jou was in trouble, there was nothing that would obligate Seto to help him. A list of plausible xcuses ran through his head, but none of them would stand up to Jou’s scrutiny. He couldn’t very well bail the Mutt out of jail and then insist that his motivation was none of Jou’s business.

Seto closed his laptop and shoved it into his briefcase just moments before the bell rang. He was out the door before the bell finished. Behind him, someone who might have been his teacher shouted after him, but Seto had no intention of slowing down.

He was required to stay for the duration of the school day and he would not volunteer another moment of his time unless the school district was willing to pay him for it. If the idiot masquerading as a teacher couldn’t manage to finish his lecture and assign homework for the following day before the bell rang, it wasn’t Seto’s problem. The first time the principal had dared to say he really should stay until the class was finished, Seto kindly offered him the card of a Personnel Consultant who specialized in teaching staff, hoping he might find someone with better time management skills. The second time, he filed a civil suit, demanding that the school district pay for every minute of his time they wasted. Two years later, it was still tied up in court and had become one of the school district’s biggest headaches. He was just a little bit proud of that.

Roland was waiting beside the open door of Seto’s limousine, as always. “We’re not going to Kaiba Corp,” Seto explained, for the third day that week. “Stay put while I make some phone calls.”

“Yes sir.”

Seto opened his laptop and dialed the first hospital listed.

“Domino General, how many I direct you call?”

“Hello,” Seto said in his most charming voice, “I’m trying to find out what room a friend of mine is in so I can send flowers and a get well present. His name last name is Jounouchi, first name Katsuya.”

Seto could hearthe woman typing. “It looks like he’s in 442. Also, there is a latex allergy note next to the room assignment, so if you send balloons, please be very careful to buy latex free.”

A broad smile spread across Seto’s lips. He had found him on the first try. It hadn’t been a waste of time to prioritize the list of hospitals by their proximity to the alley after all. Then Seto smirked. His little Mutt was allergic to latex. That was a bit of information he would definitely keep in mind. “Latex free? I’ll remember, thank you for letting me know.”

“My pleasure. Have a nice day.”

Seto hung up the phone and took a deep breath. Jou was in the hospital after all. At least Seto hadnt had to waste any time calling random facilities throughout Domino. Seto shut his eyes and tried to remember how hard he’d hit the Mutt. 

He was very confused. They’d both hit each other harder than that dozens of times. That one half-hearted punch shouldn’t have been enough to put Jou in the hospital.

Unless Jou was already injured.

Seto had been avoiding that thought for the last three days. A full three weeks before, Seto had gotten the upper hand in a fight with Jou after gym. Jou and his friends had been sitting beside the bleachers for the second half of class, talking about how the girls’ class, which was in the middle of a basketball game, looked in their short shorts. As Seto and Jou were fighting after school, all Seto could think about was Jou talking about which girls he would sleep with if he had the chance. It wasn’t like that was a decent excuse for the way Seto had lost it, but it was the only excuse he had. They were both worked up from class and they’d been trading insults back and forth all day, so when the tension finally exploded, as it so often did, both of them fought for all they were worth. Seto had spent two weeks afterwards covering up bruises. If Jou had been seriously hurt during that fight, the punch in the alley might have been enough to convince him to go to a doctor. 

Could the Mutt afford to go to a doctor? Given the state of his apartment, the answer was obvious. Seto felt his stomach sink and twist inside of him as his imagination began to supply theories about just how badly the blonde would have to be hurt before he would face the debt that would come from a trip to the emergency room.

He hit the button on the intercom hard enough to crack the plastic plate around it. “Domino General Hospital. Now.”

For nearly a minute, nothing happened, then the engine died. Seto took a deep breath and pushed the button again, “I will walk if I have to, but you better have a very good explanation for this insubordination!”

The door opened and the large European man who had been both his driver, butler, and bodyguard for the last six years opened the door. He stepped into the limo and pulled the door shut behind him. “Mr. Kaiba,” Roland sat up straight but refused to meet Seto’s gaze, “I have always been loyal to you, sir. Please, believe me when I say that you should avoid Domino General. It’s for your own good.”

“You presume to know what’s good for me?”

“I presume manslaughter charges wouldn’t be good for you. Am I incorrect?”

“Jou’s fine!” Seto shouted. “He’s in the hospital, he’s not dead!”

Roland took a deep breath. Seto could see the man shaking with rage. He had never seen Roland get emotional before. “Mr. Kaiba, sir, that boy suffered four broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and a cerebral hemorrhage after you attacked him in the alley. If I hadn’t arranged for him to be transported to the hospital, he would be dead.”

Roland met Seto’s gaze. The strength in those gray eyes was almost overwhelming. Whatever strength of will Seto still had crumbled as the list of injuries engraved itself in his mind. He felt like he was going to throw up.

“I stayed by your side when Gozoboro died, Mr. Kaiba, and I never questioned you about it. I supplied you with weapons and training, even though you weren’t legally old enough to own a handgun, when Mokuba was kidnapped. I never questioned what you did when you caught up to the men who took him. Until recently, I enjoyed the delusion that I worked in the service of an honorable man, despite your age. Consider this my resignation, Sir, and my warning. Until you grow the fuck up, I will be there every time you go near Jounouchi Katsuya.”

“Wait,” Seto whispered, stopping Roland as the large man reached for the door. “I… I deserve worse than that, you’re right. I… I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t know what his life is like, that he couldn’t afford a doctor if he actually got hurt. I just found out that I cost him his job two days ago. I….” Seto buried his head in his hands, trying to physically hold in moisture that was making his vision blur. “I really fucked up, Roland. I at least need to go apologize. It’s my fault he’s in the hospital, so I can at least make sure he doesn’t have to pay for it. After that, I’m done. I’ll stop insulting him. I’ll stop picking fights with him. I’ll leave him alone.” He shut his eyes and swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

Across from Seto, Roland's posture sagged. "Kaiba-sama," the larger man sat a comforting hand on Seto's shoulder. "It's alright, you know. I remember how tough this kind thing was when I was seventeen. Frustrating enough when it's a girl and each person knows exactly how things are supposed to go. Jou's going to be alright. Doctor Nakamura is treating him, and he's the best money can buy, after all."

Seto bent down, so relieved his brain completely stopped working and his whole body seemed to utter a collective sigh. “Thank you, Roland. If you still want to leave, I understand….”

“No, sir. Apologizing is a good first step towards growing the fuck up, so just try to stick with it from here on out. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Seto smiled at him.

“Good. I’ll….” Roland shook his head in disbelief. “I’ll take you to Domino General.”

“Ah, we’ve got to stop by the Kame Game Shop first.”

“You’re actually going to tell Mr. Motou that Jounouchi is hurt?”

“What? No! I’m going to buy a couple booster packs for Jou. My Battle City Tournament, and the launch of the duel disk system, is coming up in a few weeks, and I know he’ll want to rework his deck before then. Plus, it’ll give him something to do while he’s in the hospital.”

“You’re hopeless, Mr. Kaiba.”

By the time Kaiba picked up the booster packs from Yugi’s grandfather, it was close to six o’clock. Roland dropped him off and the hospital and Kaiba asked him to return home and make sure Mokuba was working on his homework instead of playing videogames. As he walked towards the cracked door to room 442, he slowed down, listening to the cascade of voices pouring out of the room. From the sound of it, all of Jou’s friends were packed into the hospital room at the moment. Seto didn’t want to deal with the glares he would face from the midget and his friends, so he went to find a vending machine, grabbed a cup of coffee, and found a seat in view of the door so he would know when Jou was alone.

It took about twenty minutes for Seto to become so bored he was ready to start tapping out classical melodies with his feet. Seto wandered closer to Jou’s door, listening to the laughter inside the room, then he wandered passed the empty nurse’s station. He wandered passed two more times, taking note of the assignment board used by the nurses for each shift, and the vertical file folders with each patient’s chart next to the board. On the forth trip passed the nurse’s station, he nonchalantly picked up Jounouchi’s chart and strolled away. He found a quiet waiting room on the ground floor and paged through the chart with the same calm air of a man flipping through an old magazine.

He read the details of both the surgery to release the pressure over Jou’s visual cortex and to repair his lung and ribs. He read Doctor Nakamura’s notes about evidence of old, healed fractures that had never received medical attention, about interviews with Jou being consistent with the presentation of child abuse victims. One form, labeled Authorization to Provide Medical Care was almost blank. In the parent or legal guardian signature line was a scribble, in Nakamura’s own handwriting, that looked suspiciously like: Projectile Throwing Prick.

On the most recent page of notes was a short paragraph detailing a consultation with the Department of Family Services and police department, along with a note that Jounouchi would be allowed to remain with his father but that a specially approved foster home placement would be made available to Jou whenever Jou himself felt it was necessary. Doctor Nakamura advised Jounouchi’s new case worker that, given Jou’s age, allowing him some control in the matter would prevent Jou from becoming uncooperative with Family Services. Doctor Nakamura also noted that he had recommended Jou avoid contact with a ‘school bully’ who had caused additional minor injuries.

Seto finished reading the chart and closed it, incredibly relieved that he hadn’t been the one to cause the most severe of Jou’s injuries. He shut his eyes for a moment, his body finally able to relax as the anxiety over Jounouchi disappearing began to fade. A few moments later, Seto heard someone sit in the empty chair beside him. He opened his eyes to see a man in a white physician’s coat sitting next to him, his hands clasped together and his elbows resting on his knees.

“I can explain,” Seto said quickly.

Nakamura sighed, grabbed the manila file and firmly pulled it out of Seto’s hands. The doctor glared at him but said nothing.

“I needed to know how badly I hurt the Mutt, and I couldn’t very well ask him! I couldn’t go in there and face him in front of his friends, they’d eat me alive!”

Nakamura augmented the glare with a single raised eyebrow.

“And really, since I am paying for his medical care, I should be consulted regarding his condition.”

Seto shifted uncomfortably.

“Kaiba-sama,” Nakamura stood up, taking Jou’s chart with him. “It is my duty to advise you that your behavior towards Jounouchi Katsuya is extremely unhealthy.”

“How so?” asked Seto, pretending to be oblivious.

“Your behavior could be characterized as stalking, Kaiba-sama.”

“Stalking? I’m not stalking him.”

“Are you enjoying gym this year, Kaiba-sama? I was happy to hear that your delusion of asthma has cleared up, by the way. And pre-calculus?”

Seto said nothing.

“And imagine how surprised I was to hear that your schedule has become flexible enough to allow you time to go to the arcade, and to go out for coffee. Do you find classical history to be a challenge, Kaiba-sama? Your instructor said you and Jounouchi were the only two in the class to actually understand Plato this year. He was quite pleased.”

“The Mutt got a higher score on that test than me,” Seto said without thinking.

“And how do you know that?”

“I suppose I might have gotten a bit carried away. The point of this whole school experiment was to be social, though, wasn’t it?”

“You’ve become obsessively fixated, Kaiba-sama.”

“I suppose I might be a little hyper-focused on the Mutt. I think fixated might be a bit of an exaggeration, though.”

“Kaiba-sama, for your own mental wellbeing, you should avoid any and all contact with Jounouchi in the future.”

Seto sat forward, ready to argue.

Nakamura raised his hand to stop Seto. “But I know you wont. So, what you need to do, Kaiba-sama, is to learn socially appropriate ways of interacting with Jounouchi-san. Whatever you do, I must insist that you assume that Jounouchi-san is concealing severe injuries every time you encounter him. That might help you to keep your temper in check.”

“It’s not just me, he starts shit too.”

Nakamura held up his hand again. “I am well aware that Jounouchi-san is a willing participant in these altercations between the two of you. I’ve treated the concussions and scrapes he’s given you for the past year. For now, he needs time to heal. If you can’t refrain from assaulting him for the next six weeks, then you should avoid him entirely. If you think you can control yourself, I’ve informed the nursing staff that you are authorized to visit after normal hours.”

Seto nodded. “Thank you.”

Nakamura grunted, held the file under his arm, and gave a quick nod before strolling away.

Seto sat there, thinking about the how he could possibly face Jou now. He had known Doctor Nakamura since he was a young boy and he knew that the older man would have told the Mutt that Seto was a bit pre-occupied with him. That ruined any hope Seto might have had about trying to pass his behavior in the alley off as a joke. But, given the way Jou had responded to Seto’s touch, there really was no reason not be candid anyway.

And as his thoughts so often did, they raced around inside his head until they came around to an entirely new conclusion. He had to avoid the Mutt.

He couldn’t possibly let things get more carried away than they already had. He was Seto Kaiba, after all. As hot as the Mutt was, Seto couldn’t get involved with him, not now that he knew the type of life he lived. Even if Jou was willing to sleep with him without Seto’s money as a motivator, no one else in the world would see it that way. They would see Jou as a worthless whore, and they would see Seto as the evil pervert who hired an under-aged, impoverished boy as a prostitute. No one would care that Jou could duel, that he was always standing up for people, or that he was smarter than everyone else gave him credit for.

His entire being ached as he remembered the way Jou had felt pressed up against him, the way he’d gasped and almost started rutting against him. He remembered the way Jou had seemed to glow when he’d smiled in the arcade, the way he could ignite so much joy around him, regardless of how hopeless his life actually was. 

He shook his head, trying to banish the memories. As much as he wanted Jou, Seto would force himself to focus on something else. The guilt of the last week had been torture, and it would only multiply if he let his thoughts keep turning back to Jou over and over.

On his way out the door, Seto threw the booster packs in the trash. He left a polite message on the principal’s voice mail explaining that he would need all of his time for the next several weeks to devote to the release of his new duel disk system. He had a lot to get done before he could finalize the software for the official duel disk release. He also had to put together the press release about the tournament, organize the exhibition duels, and arrange catering. He could order a new trench coat, too.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Set had been told—by more than one psychologist, six secretaries, and his brother—that he had something of an obsessive personality. He knew this about himself, but he refused to consider a trait that had allowed him the focus and drive necessary for success to a weakness. It had never been a weakness before, until Jonokuchi. Since he was refusing to let himself think about the Mutt as anything other than a duelist, he had to find something else to obsess over.

Seto threw himself into his tournament, and into duel monsters, with a new enthusiasm. He went back to focusing on crushing Yugi. When the world descended into mystical chaos around them, he stayed focused on his singular goal, writing off all of the odd phenomenon around them on a unique combination of holographic malfunctions, mass hysteria, food poisoning, and some serious untreated mental health issues among other duelists. It was unfortunate that the only other teenagers who played duel monsters at his level were complete psychopaths with violent dissociative personalities, but he didn’t let it distract him. He had played along at the time, since the only way to continue to duel and defeat Yugi was to indulge in the fantasy.

The first time he’d seen the Mutt again was at his Battle City tournament. It was awkward, and even with the crowds and Jou’s hoard of friends, Seto couldn’t keep his mouth shut. When Seto felt uncomfortable, he tended to lash out, and despite his promise to Roland, he’d ended up insulting the Mutt more than ever. From dog comments to insults about Jou’s economic status, insults about his sister, that Valentine woman, and even a few quiet remarks about being gay, Kaiba didn’t manage to hold his tongue once. He felt his heart race when he finally managed to provoke Jou into lunging at him, but his ever-helpful friends held the other boy back.

After the tournament, Seto spent the summer relaxing with his brother and watching the sales of his duel disk system skyrocket. He tried to arrange his classes for his Senior year so he didn’t have to put up with Jou. He managed it in everything except home room and English, which Jou seemed to excel at despite his obvious mental handicaps. 

On the first day of classes, Seto breathed easier after Jou had traded insults with him, taken his seat, and ignored him for the rest of the day. It felt like they were finally back to their normal interactions.

Things weren’t normal, though. No matter how much Seto tried to pretend, that moment in the alley had changed everything between them. Jou’s insults became hard hitting, his glares fiercer, and this year every time their fights became physical, it was always the Mutt who escalated things. This year, Jou’s punches landed every time. What had been sloppy strikes and haphazard blocks the previous year had become precise, efficient, and painful. It was as if the blonde had been holding back before and now he was serious about hurting Seto. 

Sick as it was, Seto didn’t mind. He would take whatever he could get.

As Spring came and the days began to get warmer, Seto noticed that there was something seriously wrong with the Mutt. Normally a sunny day was all it took to put a smile on the his face. For three years, Seto had watched Jou stare out the classroom window with longing in his eyes on every sunny day. The Mutt was always the first out the door, as if the sunlight was the hiss drug of choice and he was desperate for another fix. As their last Spring at Domino High School bloomed, Jou became depressed and withdrawn, pouring over books and papers during class rather than sleeping or staring out the window.

And his so-called friends took an appalling long time to notice. It took several loud insults about the Mutt being so depressed it was contagious before they even bothered trying to cheer him up. 

Honda tried to cheer Jou up by introducing him to girls. Seto allowed himself a real smile when he saw the Mutt roll his eyes as Honda hurried up to him with two girls from the Junior class trailing behind him. Honda wasn’t easily discouraged, though. “Come on Jou, it’s the hottest club in town! It’s all my treat, you’ll have a great time!”

“Work,” Jou muttered, “. If I don’t finish my homework before work, my boss’s wife will make me sit at her kitchen table until it’s done, and when I’m done with work, I’ve got to go to the library. I’ve got research I’ve gotta do.”

So that was why the Mutt’s grades had turned around this year, Seto realized happily. He knew, from innocently searching through school records when he was testing the school district’s network security, that the blonde had struggled to maintain a high C average throughout his first three years of school. Seto had wondered why he didn’t just quit and look into vocational training, but this year Jou was holding down an A in every single class. If the Mutt managed perfect scores for the year, he would graduate with a B average.

“Man, you’re always in the library or at work! You know, if you would just tell us what this big research project is, we could help you get it done in no time! Come out with us, a break will do you good!”

“Honda, this is important,” said Jou seriously, “And it’s something I’ve got to do on my own.”

“Fine. If you change your mind about hanging out this weekend, give me a call, okay?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“You’re going to be a Yugi’s for movies on Saturday, right?”

“Ah, not this time. I already told Yug’ I wouldn’t be able to make it this week. I’ve gotta go, Honda.”

Seto watched as Jou slung his backpack over his shoulder and hurried off through the halls, heading for the school library. 

He stood in the hallway, trying to summon Roland’s voice in his imagination to remind him that he really should go. He should be heading to Kaiba Corp. The blueprints for Kaiba Land were supposed to be done, and he was eager to get a feel for how the new dueling platforms would look in the Kaiba Dome. He had been thinking of ways to make the holograms more realistic and he wanted to start incorporating some environmental controls into the platforms. 

“What are you looking at, Kaiba?” Honda demanded, glaring at him.

He huffed, adjusted his trench coat, and stomped toward the library.

He slipped inside quietly and scanned the tables near the door for Jou. The blonde was at the counter, talking with the librarian. He hurried down the isle of shelves near the desk, stopping when he was close enough to hear the Mutt’s voice.

“No, I really do appreciate it. I know it costs a lot to print them all out for me.”

“Oh, it’s alright. Honestly, I had never even used to the program before, so it was nice to learn about the different resources available. I’m afraid I felt a bit behind the times when I had to call the Tokyo University help desk, so this has been a great chance for us both to learn something.”

“Well, thank you. With any luck, this should be the last of it.”

“If you’re going to read them here, you can pay me back by watching the desk. I’ve got to go supervise detention until four.”

“I’ll be here till closing,” Jou promised, taking the stack of papers to a table near the main desk.

“Great! You’re a life saver, Jou.”

The old librarian grabbed a stack of papers and left the otherwise empty library. Seto watched Jou skim the articles, then watched as the Mutt started taking notes. He stood behind the shelves watching the blonde for nearly half an hour. Then Jou set his pencil down and stretched, just as he always did, with his arms high over his head and his chest and abs straining over his arching back. The sight always made Seto’s breath catch in his throat.

A younger boy wandered in aimlessly. He slowly made his way to the desk, looking from side to side in hopes that the librarian might notice him.

“What’s up?” Jou asked, jumping up from the table.

“Ah… is the librarian around? I’ve got some stuff that’s overdue….”

Jou vaulted over the desk and typed a few commands on the computer. “I’ll check them in for you.” The boy handed Jou the books and watched as Jou scanned them, magnetized them, and put them on a cart. After a few more keystrokes, Jou glanced up at the boy, “You’ve still got one more overdue. You don’t have any fines yet, but you will if it’s not back by Tuesday.”

“Hu? What book?”

Seto watched as Jou turned the computer monitor so the boy could see the title.

“But I returned that one! I know I did. I wanted to check it out again last week, but the lady wouldn’t let me until I brought these back!”

“Was it on the shelf?” Jou asked.

“Yeah, I’ll show you!”

Jou followed the younger boy towards the back corner of the library.

Seto couldn’t believe his luck. He hurried out of his hiding spot between the shelves and walked towards Jou’s table, making as little noise as possible on the thin carpet.

He grabbed the stack of articles and skimmed the top page quickly. Jou was reading an article from a medical journal on liver damage and alcoholism. Seto flipped through the pages and found another article on alcoholism and blood clotting disorders. Jou’s open notebook contained pages of detailed descriptions of symptoms associated with liver failure, and a note about the few treatment options that existed beyond a liver transplant. At the bottom of the page was a note, written in someone else’s handwriting, that said that jaundice was a symptom of advanced liver failure, and was often followed by rapidly by confusion, coma, and death.

“No, no,” Jou’s voice came from the shelves, “It’s not even late enough for a fine yet, but they would waive the fine if it were.” Jou emerged from the shelves carrying a slim volume in his right hand. The boy was right behind him. Jou spotted Seto and froze. The flash of rage that burned in the Mutt’s eyes was almost frightening. “Do you want to check it out again?” Jou asked, heading to the desk.

“No, but thank you. I’m glad we found it. My mom would kill me if I had to ask her for money to replace it.”

“Sure.” Jou returned to the desk, checked the book back in, and added it to the cart with the others. Jou stayed behind the desk and watched the boy walk out. When the door shut behind him, Jou vaulted over the desk, ripped the article out of Seto’s hand, and shoved him away from the table. “Get your hands off my stuff, asshole!”

“As if I’d believe this is yours! There are no pictures, so I’m afraid this might be a bit advanced for you.”

Jou glared at him and quickly began to shove his books and papers back into his backpack.

“Yeah, figures that you wouldn’t be able to come up with something. Now you’re just going to run away and whine about your second grade reading level like the stupid little coward you’ve always been!”

“Don’t push me right now, Kaiba!”

“Or what? You going to growl and bare your teeth? That’s why they don’t allow dogs inside public facilities, you know. Animals are always unpredictable.”

Seto was expecting a punch. He was ready for a punch. He brought his hands up to block what should have been a punch. When Jou dropped his back pack and lunged at him, Seto found himself flying towards the floor. The only thing he could do was grab on to Jou’s wrists and pull the other boy down with him.

He scrambled for leverage, but Jou’s legs held his own locked into place. He had a hold of Jou’s wrists, but Jou’s fingers were wrapped his neck, cutting off his air flow and shaking his head up and down, moving with a fury that Seto hadn’t seen in him before. Seto forced down his panic when he couldn’t draw in a breath. He let go of Jou’s wrists and brought his hands up under Jou’s arms. He shoved one finger into the jugular notch in Jou’s neck and waited. As soon as the pain from the deep pressure point forced Jou to loosen his grip, Seto grabbed his arms and flipped Jou over, pinning him down with the efficiency of years of martial arts training. Before he could lock Jou’s legs beneath him, Jou used their momentum to flip Seto back onto the floor. Seto tried to get control of the situation, but Jou was perfectly balanced on top of him.

Seto stopped struggling for a moment, hoping that if he calmed down, Jou might see reason. He looked up to find Jou’s cinnamon-colored eyes staring down at him, but the rage that had been in his eyes a moment before was gone. The Mutt crushed his lips against Seto’s, kissing him with just as much energy as he’d used to try and strangle him. Seto stopped fighting for a moment and relished the feel and taste of the other boy’s lips. As he felt Jou shift to get a better angle, Seto moved.

He grabbed Jou’s wrists again and rolled over so he was on top of Jou. He didn’t pull away from the other boy until he was sure he had Jou pinned. “You shouldn’t get your hopes up, Mutt!”

Seto stared down at the enraged blonde for a moment. He was planning on shoving himself off the mongrel and storming out of the library. He really was. But Jou’s lips were right there in front of him. 

He kissed the Mutt, forcing his mouth open so he could delve inside. Jou’s tongue battled with his, as though Jou were torn between trying to push Seto’s tongue out and trying to swallow him whole. He didn’t dare relax his grip in case Jou decided to end their kiss, so he moved Jou’s arms over his head so he could hold them both in place with one hand. He ran his other hand down Jou’s side, over his hips, and over his bulging erection. He stroked Jou firmly, then wiggled his hand beneath Jou’s body to squeeze the ass he’d been drooling over for the last year and a half.

Jou wiggled, grinding his hips into Seto’s. At the same time, he wrenched one of his arms free. Seto felt Jou’s hand move down his body, trailing over the buttons of his shirt until strong fingers slipped inside his waistband. The tips of Jou’s fingers stroked the head of Seto’s own rigid cock, making him shutter.

The latch of the library door sounded like an alarm clock in Seto’s brain.  
He rolled off Jou and glanced up in time to see the librarian, staring down at the stack of papers in her hand, stroll through the door.

“You hit me after that and I’m going to fucking kill you, rich boy,” Jou whispered, adjusting the waist band of his own pants so his erection was less obvious.

“Jounouchi?” The librarian glanced up towards Jou’s table, concerned.

It was time to sound as annoyed as possible. 

“It’s right here….” Seto adjusted his clothing, unclasped his own titanium watch discretely and climbed to his feet. “I told you that it just got knocked on the floor.” He tossed the watch at Jounouchi, who caught it despite the stunned and flushed looked on his face. “You really need to take better care of your things.” Seto strode out, not even glancing at the librarian on his way by.

He hurried out of the library, buttoning his suit jacket as he went. He headed toward the main hallway, stepped to the side, and waited for Jou. The Mutt wasn’t far behind him. Jou came jogging passed, holding Seto’s watch in one hand and his backpack in the other. Seto grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop when Jou nearly ran passed him.

“We need to talk,” said Seto gently, dragging the Mutt into the bathroom across the hall. Seto tossed Jou inside the bathroom, pushed the door shut and spun the Mutt around, pinning him against the door. “This never happened,” he insisted.

“Don’t you mean ‘that’ never—"

Seto made a mental note to let Jou finish talking next time. For now, though, he was determined to make the most of his chance to actually kiss the blonde. Kiss, lick, bite, squeeze, and nibble on the blonde, anyway. Seto licked his lips, kissed his way along Jou’s jaw until he reached his ear, then began working his way down Jou’s neck. He held Jou close, touching every inch of him.

“Got it… ‘this’ never happened….” Jou moaned as Seto ground his hips against Jou’s. “If this isn’t happening, maybe it should not happen somewhere else?”

Seto growled and bit a salty section of skin above Jou’s collar bone. The moan that escape from Jou’s throat nearly made Seto cum in his pants.

“And you call me a dog,” Jou chuckled.

Seto chuckled silently. He unbuttoned Jou’s pants and pushed them down over his hips. “Well, you did practically start humping my leg back there….”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jou grabbed his pants. “Slow down.”

Seto stared at Jou for a moment, first at his eyes, then at the way his cock strained against his briefs. “You can’t tell me you don’t want to.”

“I really do, but not like this.”

The pained look on Jou’s face was the sobering influence that Seto needed. “Fuck. Look Mutt, this…. This can’t turn into anything. You’re so hot that it hurts to look at you, but if this happens, it has to be a one-time thing. We’re from different worlds and you know it, and if this got around, it would ruin us both.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Jou leaned his head back against the door and looked at the ceiling. He was avoiding Seto’s eyes. “I just don’t want… Just not like this.”

“Oh, I think you do,” said Seto, dropping his voice as low as he could manage without sounding stupid. He placed both of his hands on Jou’s hips, dipped his fingers beneath the elastic of his briefs, and slipped them down and freeing Jou’s erection.

“I do not want my first time to be with a heartless asshole who’s only going to use it to torture me after, and not in the damn school bathroom!”

Jou’s first time. Something inside Seto tried to force his stoic mask aside so he could smile and cheer. He managed to turn it into a sneer. “I will not use it to—” Then Seto honestly thought about it. “Alright, so that first point has some merit.”

Seeing the look on Jou’s face, Seto knew he had to act quickly otherwise Jou really would turn him down. “But why you assume the dynamic is in my favor is beyond me. All you’d have to do is tell one tabloid that Kaiba Corp’s CEO sucked you off in a bathroom and you’d ruin me, so really, you’re the one with the power here.”

Jou’s eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. “Sucked….”

Seto grinned. “Can I?”

When Jou managed something that looked like a nod, he dropped to his knees and swallowed Jou’s erection eagerly. He slipped the tip of Jou’s cock into his throat, sucked for a moment, then withdrew and worked his tongue around the tip. The strangled gasps he coaxed out of the Mutt were enough to convince him that he could do this all day. It didn’t take long for Jou’s entire body to tense and for the gasps to turn into desperate whimpers. Seto pulled away and finished Jou with two quick, firm strokes, letting Jou cum in his hand.

“Oh damn, Kaiba, ‘dat was…. Damn.”

Seto rubbed the head of Jou’s cock again, trying to memorize the way the his whole body shuddered with each gentle brush of Seto’s thumb. Seto rocked himself to his feet and claimed Jou’s lips again, pressing him back against the door and forcing his way inside Jou’s delicious mouth. He trailed his slick hand down the length of Jou’s cock, stroked his sac lightly, then reached back farther. Jou’s limp body tensed and arched as Seto reached a single finger inside. Muscles clenched around his finger. Seto couldn’t help panting as he imagined how tight Jou’s ass would feel wrapped around his cock.

“Shh, it’s alright,” Seto whispered. “I swear you’ll enjoy it.”

“And afterwards you’ll be gone and tomorrow you’ll still be an asshole. I’m not letting you fuck me.”

Seto withdrew his finger and stepped away. He managed to turn the Mutt on, but the Mutt didn’t want this. He wasn’t very good at resisting, but he was resisting. The world felt like it was crumbling around him.

Jou shut his eyes and swallowed hard. “Look, the fact that we….”

“Want to fuck each other raw?” Seto suggested, when the Mutt seemed to be at a loss for words.

“Gods, you are such an asshole!”

Seto tried to smirk, but at the moment he couldn’t seem to hide anything, including how much he enjoyed winding the blonde up. The grin on his face had to look stupid. It seemed to catch Jou off guard. Jou stared at him for a moment, his head tilted as if trying to analyze Seto’s expression, then he laughed. Seto found himself laughing, too. He didn’t even mind when Jou pulled him close and leaned his forehead against Seto’s shoulder, holding him as they both laughed.

“It doesn’t change the fact that we’re still going to hate each tomorrow. Hell, we might hate each other ten minutes from now. And we’re in the middle of the friggin’ bathroom.”

Seto didn’t realize how much he’d closed in on himself until Jou had to lift up his chin to get his attention. “I….” Jou swallowed audibly. “I don’t mind… You know… I wouldn’t mind, well, returning the favor, sort of thing.”

Seto didn’t protest when Jou grabbed his jacket and spun them around, pushing him against the door to the bathroom. Jou fumbled with Seto’s zipper for a moment then pulled his quickly returning erection into the cool bathroom air. Jou sank down, hesitated for a moment, then licked Seto from the base of his cock to the head, twirling his tongue around the sensitive tip before taking Seto’s entire cock into his mouth. Seto couldn’t take his eyes off of Jou as his lips moved up and down Seto’s length, his eyes almost shut. Seto wanted to memorize the scene before him, wanted to engrave it in his mind so that he would be able to recall it every time he looked at the blonde. Hesitantly, Seto ran his fingers through Jou’s golden hair, massaging the Mutt’s scalp and holding him still while Seto gently thrust into his mouth. When Jou relaxed his throat and swallowed him completely, Seto couldn’t stand it anymore.

He felt the tension starting in his stomach and only had a moment to pull away before he exploded into Jou’s mouth. To his surprise, Jou grabbed his hips and pulled him deeper, increasing the suction in a maddening rhythm just as Seto came. Jou sucked down every drop of Seto’s cum, his tongue lapping at the sensitive tip over and over again. Seto almost let out the scream that roared through him, but he managed to keep his mouth shut as he rode out the last tremors of his orgasm, still encased in Jou’s mouth. When his panting slowed down, Jou gave him one last lick and then stood up, a satisfied smile on his face.

Through a happy daze, Seto couldn’t think of anything horrible to say. 

He zipped up his pants, grabbed Jou’s collar and pulled him close, crushing Jou’s smaller body against him and holding him in place with an iron grip. He sunk down against the door, pulling Jou down into his lap and wrapping both arms tightly around the Mutt to make sure he didn’t get away. Jou squirmed a bit, but finally settled and laid his head against Seto’s chest. The Mutt fit perfectly against him.

After a moment, Jou tried to pull away from him. Seto tightened his grip.

“Kaiba,” Jou sighed, “I really do need to get ta work.”

Seto smiled down at him. “You just stole my normal excuse, you know. That desperate to get away from me?”

Jou smiled. “Oddly, no. But I have a project I’ve been working on for most of the year, and my boss is having some supplies and hardware delivered today.”

“I think we need to talk first,” said Seto, still holding Jou tight. “We’re agreed about this, right? It was a one-time thing. You still hate me, I still hate you, you tell the press and I get to hunt you down and flay you alive.”

Jou laughed. “You know, with that smile on your face, all of the comments that normally make you sound like an asshole are kind of funny. Well, look at that…” Jou pulled away slightly and turned to face Seto head on. “You’re blushing! After all that, you blush when I say that you’re funny? What the hell?”

“I was being completely serious,” Seto insisted.

“You’re still smiling.” Jou looked like he was about to gloat, but he shook his head. “Look, I know what something like this getting out would do. Your reputation might never recover. Your sales would drop, your stock would fall, and DFS would probably take your brother away from you—or try to, I suppose.” Seto felt his smile fading as Jou spoke. “I wouldn’t put you through something like ‘dat. But it’s a two-way street. You’ve got more to lose than me, but if this were to get out, odds are some old fuck down my street would try to pimp me out, or the assholes I left behind in the gang would finally have an excuse to slit my throat.” Seto’s arms tightened around Jou at the thought of someone forcing him to walk the streets or hurting him because they had been together.

“So, yeah,” Jou peeled himself out of Seto’s arms and held out his hand to help Seto up. Reluctantly, Seto took it. “You still hate me. I still hate you. You’re still going to be an asshole and I’m still going to kick your ass for it. This can never happen again.”

“Agreed,” said Seto, dusting himself off. He reached for the door, but just for the hell of it grabbed Jou by the back of the neck and pulled him in for one last, lingering kiss. “That was just a slip,” he muttered, when the blonde was panting heavily again. “Never again.”

“Would you get the hell out of here before I jump you!” Jou yelled.

“You mean if I stay you will jump me? I really want to fuck you, but I’ll take what I can get.”

Jou shoved him toward the door. “Go!” His eyes snapped open as though he’d needed a moment to process Seto’s question. “Wait! Really?”

“No, this was a one-time thing. You’re not the brightest Mutt in the world, you know.”  


When Jou smiled, Seto smirked and left, rushing out of the building before things could get more complicated.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing this after so many years is both fun and embarrassing. Mostly fun. I remember this going a little off the rails in later chapters, though, so there might be bigger edits in the 2nd half.

Chapter 6

Two weeks later, at seven in the morning, Jou leaned over his cracked bathroom sink and carefully swished out the pair of boxers he’d worn to bed that night. Wet dreams were great, but the aftermath was a pain, especially when you didn’t own a washing machine and only owned enough briefs to last the week. Every night it was the same dream, Kaiba pinning him down and forcing his cock inside Jou’s body right there on the floor of the boy’s bathroom. Just the memory of the dream was enough to make Jou harden inside the nearly clean pair of jeans that he’d pulled on so he wouldn’t be naked as he waited for his underwear to dry. Jou didn’t regret telling Kaiba no, but his subconscious seemed determined to force him to imagine saying yes as often as possible.

Jou tossed his wet underwear into his room and decided to make an actual breakfast for once. He dug through the cabinets and the small fridge but didn’t find anything fresh. He would have to go shopping after school today. Jou got out a small bowl and began rinsing a cup of rice, swishing the rice through ice cold tap water with his right hand. He set the rice to soak, made himself a single cup of coffee, and laid down on the ragged couch that they’d inherited from an old junkie down the hall. He tried to doze off, but he caught himself thinking about Kaiba every time he relaxed.

Jou heard a groan from behind his dad’s bedroom door. He heard the tinkling of glass, the shuffling of garbage, and then the door opened. His dad, already dressed for the day by virtue of having never undressed the night before, staggered out and sat down on the couch just passed Jou’s feet.

“Morning,” his dad muttered, burying his head in his hands.

“Yeah. You want a cup of coffee?” Jou asked, standing up.

“We got a new coffee maker?”

“No,” said Jou, getting out a second coffee cup. He set the kettle on to boil, placed the same filter he’d used directly into the cup and added a scoop of fresh coffee. A minute later he handed his dad the steaming cup. “It don’t have a fancy programmable timer, but it tastes alright.”

With shaking hands, Jou’s dad took a tentative sip, murmured a pleasant surprise, and took a deep drink. “That’s not bad at all. Tastes better than the stuff that old piece of crap used to make, anyway. Thank you, boy.”

“Thought you might like it.”

His dad drained the coffee as efficiently as he usually drained a beer. Hands still shaking, he set the cup on the floor. “And you’ve got rice going. What’s the occasion?”

Jou shrugged. “I was just up early, is all.”

His dad nodded, then looked up at him, his expression serious. “Well, I’m glad you’re awake. We gotta talk.”

“What’s up?” Jou asked, carefully lingering near the counter and pretending to watch the rice soak.

“I sent a letter to your grandfather.”

“Grandpa Joe?” Jou asked, vaguely remembering fishing with the old man when he’d been a young boy in America.

“Yup. I been writing to him every now and again. Told him you got your grades up, found a decent job and all that. I know that you’ve written off leaving here, Katsuya, but I think you’re going to have to reconsider. Since you’re about to turn eighteen, you’re not going to be able to keep your dual citizenship much longer. You’ve got to choose, you know, which country you want to live in.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were born in New Jersey, Katsuya. If you stay here when you come of age, well, that’s it, you’re a Japanese citizen, plain and simple. If you go back to the States, you can elect to be a citizen there. I was talking to my ol’ man about it and he said he’d be willing to put up with you for a few years, and that, being an American, you’d probably be able to get financial aid to go to school over there. Grants and student loans and shit. Stuff you already said you can’t qualify for here.”

“Dad, only smart rich kids go to school in America,” Jou said simply. “People like Anzu and Seto. Not me….”

“Will you shut up and listen?” His dad brought both of his hands to his temples, his body trembling. “I’m saying that I think you’d have a better shot if you left Domino, and Japan. I ain’t never given you anything worthwhile and I know it. But maybe, well, maybe you can make something of yourself if you can get out of all this crap,” his dad motioned to the apartment around them.

“And what’s going to happen to you?” Jou asked, recognizing the self-destructive look in his dad’s eyes.

“Nothing that ain’t gonna happen anyway. And no, don’t look at me like that,” his dad shook his head. “If I had the courage to do it right, I’d have been dead years ago. Sometimes I think I’ve always been too much of a coward to actually face the world, except through the bottom of a bottle. But you know damn well that I’m sick. This ain’t a cold. It is not going to go away.”

“Dad, I’ve been doing some reading. If you don’t stress your liver anymore, there’s no reason….” Jou couldn’t bring himself to say it. That was a damn big if, given his dad’s temperament, and it would buy him a few more months at best. The damage to his dad’s liver was already done, and he didn’t have the will power to go without alcohol.

“No, Jou. This isn’t about me. I talked that boss o’yours. He thinks you ought to go, too. Even said he’d recommend you to a good school.”

Jou let his head drop and stared at the filthy floor. He couldn’t look at his dad’s orange tinted skin and sallow eyes any more. The tremors were getting worse, and his dad could hardly keep down solid food. Jou wanted to throw up himself. He couldn’t believe that his dad was sitting on the couch dying and telling Jou to abandon him and run off to school in America. He could never do it.

“Look, I know I ain’t the only thing keeping you here, and that’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

“I know, I know, Shizuka’ll be fine.”

“I meant this Seto guy you’ve fallen for.”

Jou dropped his coffee cup. Half a cup of dark coffee spilled over the floor, but the cup bounced off his foot and rolled away instead of shattering.

“You know about that?”

“You’ve talked in your sleep since you were three-years-old, do you think there’s much in your life I don’t know about?”

“Shit,” Jou had to remind himself to breath as he began backing towards the door.

“God damn it, Katsuya, just relax. I ain’t mad.”

“You’re not? You’re not upset about me being… well, you know?”

“Gay? No, I ain’t upset about that. After a while, I kind of figured you’d turn out that way. You’re almost eighteen years old, Katsuya. A woman with a rack like that Valentine chick hanging all over you should have had you blubbering like an idiot. Hell, seeing her on TV with you had me blubbering like an idiot. You didn’t even seem to look at her twice. It got kinda obvious, after a while. I am furious about who you’ve decided to fall in love with, though.”

“I am not in love with Kaiba!”

Jou’s dad lowered his shaking hands and glared at him. “Don’t lie to me, boy.”

“I…. Look, it’s just a thing. It’s not serious.”

“It’d better not be. I’d never be able to forgive myself, Katsuya. Come here, will you?”

Jou hesitated for a moment, then sat on the couch beside his father. Up close, Jou could see the smaller muscle tremors that were the signs that his father was right in the middle of the worst of the withdrawal symptoms.

“You know, I was afraid of this with your sister. I sure as hell never thought I’d have to deal with it for you. But the fact of the matter is, I’m sorry for all the shit I’ve put you through.”

“I know, Pops.”

“No, you don’t. I’m sorry. I know I’ve been a shitty father, but I don’t want to see you end up with someone… with someone like me. Out of all the people you’ve grown up with, you had to go and fall for the one person who is going to end up just like me. He’s the only other person in your life you’ve ever let knock you around. Damn it, Katsuya, it ain’t supposed to be like that! You deserve better than me for a dad and you sure as hell deserve better than him! I… I want you to go back to the States, boy. And get away from that rich prick. I don’t care if you end up with a boy or a girl, but I want you to end up with somebody who’s going to care about you and treat you decent.”

“Dad,” Jou tried to fight down the blush that was raising though his cheeks and reaching all the way to his ears. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is? Can we talk about football or something?”

His dad chuckled and shook his head. “I’m too fucking cold. I’m going to go back to bed.”

“Alright. I’m going over to Yug’s house after work, but I’ll bring back a few slices of pizza.”

His dad groaned at the mention of food, shook his head, and staggered back into his dark cave of a bedroom.

When the rice was cooked, Jou packed half of it up for his dad, ate the other half, and hurried out to catch the bus. He wasn’t really worried about food, since Techni or Sakura always made sure he ate something while he was working. He had to take three different buses to reach the affluent section of town where the Nakamura’s home was located, just three blocks down from the Kaiba mansion. He let himself in through a side gate and set his bag down on the back patio. Glass and ceramic tiles were stacked on pallets near the patio, along with what was left of the piping and plastic lining Jou had used to create the huge coy pond that now dominated the back yard. The pond had taken him a long time to finish, since he did everything. Including the excavation, himself. He had even laid the terribly expensive imported river rock by hand, forming an artful waterfall just off the patio. The water lilies were already starting to grow and would bloom in the summer heat. He had replaced their European-style hedges with low maintenance bamboo and planted nearly mature cherry trees in the curves of the pond. He had built raised flower beds in curving yin-yang patters on either side of the pond. He’d spent the last two months hand-laying triangle shaped tile along the walkways in between the flower beds, crating patterns of interwoven white and black dragons against a red terracotta background.

It had taken him a year’s worth of effort, and the help of a few professional contractors, but Jou had managed to transform Sakura’s plain lawn into a perfect, and low maintenance, Chinese-style garden. He had never dreamed of being able to create something so calming and tranquil, since the only soil he had access to in his own home was the inch-thick layer of filth that he had once tried to scrape out from behind the mini-fridge. He always loved hanging out in the park, but he’d never had the chance to plant something and watch it grow before. He had never had a medium to express himself artistically, either. Unfortunately, it was also a lot of work and it was taking forever. He plugged in a handheld jigsaw and started cutting the larger tiles into the small triangles he needed to finish the last few feet of walkway.

The back door of the house opened. Sakura emerged, dressed in a simple kimono. A housekeeper followed her with a tray of rice balls and a silver coffee pot. The housekeeper sat the tray down, bowed low, and back away, disappearing into the house.

Jou released the trigger on the saw. “Good morning,” he called, once the power tool was quiet.

“Good morning, Katsuya-kun. Have you eaten?”

“Yes ma’am,” Jou nodded.

“Well, that’s too bad. I’m afraid that Ryoko made far too much food this morning, and I was going to try making sourdough bread this afternoon. It feels wrong to start baking when there’s still food left over.”

“Sourdough?”

She tilted her head to the side and grinned. “It’s bread made from a sustained culture of wild yeast. Commercial yeast has only been used in baking for approximately a hundred and fifty years, and prior to that bakers raised their own yeast cultures. Believe it or not, there is a legend that American pioneers were sustained almost exclusively by sourdough. I’ve synthesized the most common elements of thirty-four different recipes and I’m interested in seeing the results.”

Jou nodded. Around Sakura’s fifth attempt at chocolate chip cookies, she decided that trial and error was an inefficient approach to learning how to cook. Since then, she read every recipe she could find for a given ‘experiment’ and then approached the kitchen like a chemist working in a lab, deducing which ingredients and techniques were necessary and which were just extras. Jou only understood some of the more rudimentary things she explained about the cooking or baking processes, but he enjoyed tasting the results all the same.

“I can always eat a bit more,” said Jou, setting aside the freshly cut pieces of tile.

“I was hoping you would be able to help me.” Sakura clasped her hands together, then stood and poured him a cup of coffee.

“Sit, eat,” she said, motioning to the small chair opposite her own.

“Will the Doc be joining us this morning?”

“He will,” Sakura said brightly. “I told him that the walkway was almost done and he was very excited. He’s making photocopies of something for you, but he didn’t want to tell me what it was.”

“Oh,” Jou blushed and looked down at the table. “It’s no secret or anything. Just some articles from a medical journal—stuff I couldn’t find from the library at school or downtown.”

“I know it shouldn’t surprise me that you read things like that, but I still think it’s an impressive level of dedication, given your age.”

“It’s nothing,” said Jou simply. “This,” he motioned to the garden, “Is a lot more fun than pouring over articles and dictionaries all day.”

“Is it?” she asked, the expression on her face told him that the idea was completely contrary to everything she held dear.

He shrugged, “Everybody has their strengths.”

“That’s very true.” Sakura’s eyes were fixed on his hands. He followed her gaze and remembered that he was wearing Kaiba’s watch. He was very careful not to flinch or hide his wrist. If he did either, it would just make her suspicious. If he didn’t move, she might just assume that he and Kaiba had somehow ended up with similar looking watches.

He took a sip of his coffee, savoring the flavor. After the crap he’d had at home, it was exquisite. That was the one vice that he’d picked up working for the Nakamuras. And it was one Jou really couldn’t afford to maintain. Sakura-san always brought home the best imported coffee that money could buy.

It was Sakura who suggested he give up the drip style coffee maker and just set the filter over the cup. She had an expensive plastic cone with a gold-plated filter for making coffee the same way. It did make the cheap coffee taste better, but it was still nothing compared to hers.

“Hey, thanks again for the tip about the coffee. Even my old man liked the stuff I made this morning.”

“Glad to help. You know, Katsuya, I started making coffee this way when I was a student. I was brought up by my grandmother, and we didn’t have much money. I went to school on a scholarship. I didn’t have the money for a coffee pot or the space to keep one....” She smiled sadly and set her coffee cup down, wrapping both of her hands around the thin china. “When Tenchi proposed, his mother stopped by my little apartment by surprise. I offered her coffee because I didn’t have any tea. Can you imagine? A traditional homemaker, who had only seen western-style coffee pots in the store windows, standing in an eight square foot apartment in a full kimono watching me bastardize coffee” She was so polite that I almost thought it wouldn’t matter. That night, Tenchi’s father informed him that his mother had decided to forbid him from marrying me. She didn’t want her eldest son marrying a low-class gold digger.”

She drained her coffee and set the cup on the table. “I finished school, I learned how to dress, how to act, how to seem upper class so well that no one ever guessed that I was a scholarship girl from a ruined family. When I turned thirty-five, I ran into Tenchi’s father at a business party. It was a party Kaiba Seto hosted, to celebrate my promotion to Senior Vice President and Head of Accounting, so of course, I had made sure I looked my best. Tenchi’s father asked when I was going to settle down and marry his son. And, would you believe that it was Kaiba Seto who came to my rescue? He took my arm, laughed like Nakamura-san had made a joke, and said that his son was lucky to win the attention of a woman of my caliber, but that he shouldn’t get too hopeful about me marrying into a lower class.”

“Kaiba said that? I bet he knew you were from a poor home, didn’t he?”

“He did,” Sakura confirmed. “He also knew that Tenchi’s mother thought I wasn’t good enough for her son. Nakamura-san was outraged. He said that I was nothing but a poor bookworm who had probably slept my way up the corporate ladder. Kaiba-sama laughed louder, and said that Nakamura-san should recall that his host had started as nothing more than a low class orphan, and that those who excel despite adversity were the only ones truly entitled to claim they were successful in life. He looked at Nakamura-san like he was filth and said that he had previously thought that the Nakamura family was honorable enough to place themselves above such petty concerns as birth and status.” Sakura looked down at her wedding ring, a soft smile lighting up her features. “We finally eloped three days later. Kaiba Seto was one of our witnesses. He was one of the only guests. The gesture meant so much to me that I gave him a watch just like that as a thank you present.”

Jou dropped his wrist beneath the table, blushing.

“I was pretty sure it was one of a kind.”

“Yeah, he ah… he loaned it to me, because I was always running late….”

Sakura-san’s mouth opened in a silent ‘oh.’ She smiled at him, a familiar and mischievous glint in her eyes. “About two weeks ago, on Friday, by any chance? He was in a good mood that day. It was creepy. He was also asking what time it was every thirty seconds.”

Jou ducked his head low, turning his gaze towards the yard. He couldn’t help how much he was already blushing. Seeing the smirk on Sakura-san’s face would just make it worse.

“So,” Jou took a deep breath. He fumbled with the metal watch, twisting it around on his wrist. It was just a bit too big for him. “I thought you didn’t like Kaiba. It almost sounds like you two were friends, and if you gave him ‘dis….”

“Oh, I never said I don’t like him. He’s an annoying, arrogant brat. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s a good person and a dear friend.”

“I… ah… I guess I shouldn’t say anything about him then.”

“I’ve heard his little brother say far worse about him than you have. Do me a favor, though?”

“Sure?”

“Take that off while you’re working. I realize this is not something that you’ve probably had an issue with before, but I paid sixty thousand for that watch. Not really the type of thing you should wear when working with power tools.”

“Is that all? My friend Honda spent about that much on his watch. This looks nicer, though. I figured it had to be worth more.”

“You’re cute, Katsuya-kun. I meant dollars, not yen. It is a custom made platinum and titanium Cartier.”

“Oh shit!” Jou unclasped the watch as quickly as he could and set it on the table gently, scooting back a few inches, as though it might explode.

Sakura-san laughed out loud. “I can’t believe the look on your face!”

“What? Were you joking?”

She kept laughing. “You look like you’re worried that it’ll burn you or something!”

“Well, it’s expensive. I’m not the best when it comes to dealing with nice things.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Kaiba-sama wouldn’t have loaned it to you if he didn’t trust you to take care of it. Besides, whatever happened that day made my whole week easier.”

“Glad I could help, I guess.”

“So, Katsuya-kun, have you thought about where you’re going to college? You can’t be thinking about doing chores for the rest of your life, after all.”

He shook his head. He had been expecting something like this, after his dad mentioned talking to his boss.

“Have you considered studying medicine?”

“My grades aren’t high enough to become a doctor. I don’t think I’d be able to stay interested in it, anyway.”

“I thought not. Tenchi was hoping to persuade you, but I just don’t see you having the patience to put up with the years of busy work and red tape he had to wade through as a student. I think you’d be better suited to political science, personally.”

Jou tried to keep his laughter calm and polite, but he only barely managed it. “I’m flattered that you think I could manage, Sakura-san, but I’ll never be able to get into college.”

“You think so? You don’t give yourself enough credit, Katsuya. Don’t you remember those placement tests that Tenchi had you take?”

Jou couldn’t very well forget them. Early in the school year, he had taken not only the traditional placement tests, but an American one as well. Each one had lasted six hours—he’d wasted three perfectly good Saturdays on them. He listed the Nakamura’s address, since Sakura had warned him that test results could easily get lost in the mail in a neighborhood like his. He had been very pointedly avoiding thinking about those tests ever since. The results had probably been buried in a pile of junk mail in Doctor Nakamura’s home office for months. Jou didn’t want to see just how bad had scored now that he couldn’t blame the test results on bad eyes.

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t have a decent chance, considering how you did.”

“What are you talking about?”

Sakura tilted her head to the side, considering his expression for a moment. After a moment, she nodded, although more to herself than to Jou. “Excuse me for a moment, won’t you?”

Jou had learned to recognize that face. “No, no, whatever it is, please don’t shout at him! He doesn’t deserve it!”

“Oh, he does, Katsuya-kun. But I’m not going to shout at him. One day I’m sure you’ll learn that sometimes being quietly disappointed can be much more damaging than shouting. I’ll be back in a moment. Please eat more, I’ll have wasted sixteen dollars worth of Russian flour if I can’t start that sourdough bread today.”

“Alright.”

A full ten minutes later, Doctor Nakamura, with a half-eaten rice ball clenched in his teeth and a stack of large envelopes nearly a foot high held in both arms, was ushered out of the house with his wife right behind him. Sakura took the rice ball out of her husband’s mouth, set it on a dainty plate, and set a place for him beside her.

“I was going to get around to it,” Doctor Nakamura hissed quietly. “Good morning, Katsuya. Toxicology comparisons for you,” he handed Jou a thin stack of photocopied medical articles. “Your dad’s results are on the bottom.”

“Thank you,” Jou took them solemnly. “Did you look at them?”

“Yes. Not that I had to, given the presentation of symptoms. And really, you might as well not bother. You can guess the prognosis as accurately as I can from the symptoms. If you can persuade him to come into the clinic….”

“I’ve tried.”

“The next few months aren’t going to be easy, Katsuya,” Nakamura looked glum. “If he won’t go to the hospital, there is nothing pleasant about what you’re going to have to deal with to take care of him... The rest of this is yours too.”

“Mine?”

“I’m afraid so,” Doctor Nakamura set the huge stack of envelopes down on the table.

Jou picked up the first couple inches and flipped through the envelopes. They were all from major universities, most of them were in Japanese and many were in English. Jou opened the top one and pulled out a thick stack of papers. It was in English and it took him a moment to shift his brain into the right frame of mind to translate it. “We would like to invite you to apply…? What?”

Doctor Nakamura, chewing on another rice ball, sorted through the stack of enveloped and pulled three from near the bottom of the pile. These three had already been opened. “You said you didn’t want to know, but I was curious.”

“My test results? What’s the damage?” Jou asked, pulled the results of the Japanese placement tests out first. Nakamura said nothing while Jou glanced at the chart that recorded his scores. “That’s….” Jou looked up at Doctor Nakamura suspiciously. “That’s close to….”

“I told you to work harder in math,” Doctor Nakamura shook his head sadly.

“But this says….” Jou unfolded the chart, “This says I only missed six math questions!”

“Exactly. Since you missed one question on all of the other sections combined, I’d say that math is definitely your weak area.”

“But this is impossible! I’ve always gotten horrible grades in math.”

“How have your grades been since your surgery?”

“Well, that’s different. I’ve had someone breathing down my neck about homework this whole time.” Jou looked at Sakura meaningfully, then at the other test results. Both of the other test results were similar. Jou had scored in the 99th percentile on both of the Japanese college placement tests, and in the 95th percentile on the American ACTs. “But this….”

“Would have been slightly better if you had spent a bit more time studying math,” Doctor Nakamura repeated, with a smile on his face. “I went by your place and mentioned it to your dad, but I think he might have forgotten to tell you about it.”

“He didn’t exactly forget.” His old man hadn’t forgotten at all, he had just put off talking to Jou about it until he heard back from Jou’s grandfather. His father knew that he would be able to get into an American school and wanted to give Jou a chance to go. “I might really be able to go to college…?”

“Yes. Which means, since I have no idea how to set tile, I expect that walkway to be finished before you leave Domino.”

“Haven’t you looked at it recently? I think I’ve only got a couple more weekends of work left, and that’s with filling up the flowerbeds.”

“I know. But you’re going to need time to look through these brochures, type applications and essays, and get all of the paperwork together. I think that should be your priority at the moment. A lot of these have application deadlines, if I recall. Feel free to have things sent here if you need to.”

Jou kept flipping through the envelopes from universities, stunned by all of the colleges that apparently wanted him to apply. “Am I supposed to apply to all of these?”

“Here, I’ll sort, you cut tile,” Sakura offered, setting her coffee cup down demurely.

Jou thought about his father, trembling on the couch of their small apartment, too sick to eat or take in more than a few sips of coffee. He was the only one his dad had in the world. He could not go to school. “No, don’t go to any trouble. I’m probably not going to bother. I think I need a break from school. Maybe I’ll take a year or two off, look for some full time work around Domino and save up a bit of money.”

Sakura’s eyes darted down to the small stack of toxicology reports that her husband had given Jou. Jou didn’t need to explain. He had long ago learned that Sakura was much smarter than Jou, her husband, and Kaiba combined. She knew why he couldn’t go and her eyes communicated everything that she didn’t dare say. Of course, it was only proper that a young man take care of his parents in their old age, or if they were ill. Most men, however, didn’t have to face the burden to taking care of their parents until they were much older, until they had finished their education, had successful careers, and families of their own. After everything Jou had been through growing up, to shoulder such a burden when he wasn’t even an adult was something that Sakura found remarkable and tragic. She knew his pride allowed no other options, so she didn’t argue that it was unfair or try to persuade him that he was throwing his life away. Jou could read all of it in her eyes without the older woman having to say a word.

Jou focused on work, devoting every bit of energy and attention to completing the detailed moasic as perfectly as possible. He spent two hours cutting two-inch pieces of tile and mixing mortar. By the time he was done, Sakura had reduced the overwhelming stack of envelopes down to six and disappeared back into the house. Jou laid out the tile for a two-foot section of walkway, using small toothpicks to mark the borders of the design. Six hours later he had worked his way to the last segment of the design—a simple infinity symbol. He cut the rest of the tile he’d need, then sat down at the table where Sakura had left the envelopes. They had all been opened and the one on top was for a small private college in Domino. Sakura had circled the name of the city in the return address. Maybe, Jou thought, pulling out the envelope’s contents, he could go to school and still take care of his dad.

He was already fairly familiar with the application process, since he’d been watching Yugi, Honda, and Anzu work their way through the whole process for the last month. He shoved the envelopes and the test scores into his backpack, popped into the house to say goodbye, and then headed back to the bus stop. He’d been saying no to movie night at Yugi’s for nearly a month now and he was determined to spend at least a bit of time with his friends before they all went their separate ways, even if Jou himself was going nowhere.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Jou felt like he was going to be sick. The world was spinning and alcohol-scented bile kept seeping into his mouth as his stomach tried, in vain, to expel everything he’d had to eat and drink. He sat down on the back steps of Yugi’s house and waited until the cement under his feet felt like it was solid before trying to stand up again.

Jou had never felt so stupid in his entire life. Yugi had let Otogi come over, and that had led to thirty or forty people Jou only vaguely knew showing up. And of course, when he tried to politely tell the other boy that he didn’t drink, Otogi had taken it as a challenge instead of a statement of fact. Somewhere between the One wont hurt you! from Honda and Otogi goading him with the fact that even Yugi could handle three beers, Jou had lost track of how many drinks he’d had.

He’d snuck out to the back yard for some fresh air, and to be alone. He shut his eyes, dwelling on the possibility that he really was just weak-willed worthless bum, no different from his old man. He hadn’t said anything out loud, but the alcohol made it impossible for him to keep a cheerful smile on his face. He couldn’t deal with another person he didn’t know asking him what was wrong. He climbed unsteadily to his feet, determined to just go home.

As he staggered, slender fingers wrapped around his wrist and hips, pulling him steadily to his feet.

“You weren’t kidding when you said you’d never had a drink,” Otogi laughed.

Jou glanced down at his hips, confused about what Otogi’s hands were doing there. “’Togi?”

“I never would have guessed you were such a light weight. Come on, let’s get you upstairs. You can sleep it off in Yugi’s room.”

Jou tried to remember why he had to get home, tried to think of a polite way to shove Otogi’s hands off of him, but by the time his brain caught up, Otogi was behind him, pushing him up the stairs. Otogi reached around Jou and opened the door to Yugi’s spare room. Jou felt insistent hands gently shoving him forward, then heard the door close behind them.

“Come on, you’re not going to be able to make it home like that. Let’s get your shoes off.”

Otogi spun Jou around and gently pushed him down on to the bed, pushing Jou’s green jacket off of his shoulders.

“’Togi, why’d you close the door?”

Otogi leered at him, twisting one of the dice beads in his hair. “Are you that uncomfortable with me? I know we didn’t get off to the best start, but,” Jou felt Otogi’s hand cupping his cheek and saw Otogi’s face drawing closer, “I think we could be very good friends if we got to know each other better. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get to know you.”

The hand on his cheek moved down his neck and over his chest, pinching his nipples through the fabric of his t-shirt. Jou tried to stand up but found himself pushed down on to his back. Fingers wrapped around his wrists in a way that reminded him of his fights with Kaiba. This wasn’t Kaiba, though. The thought made his stomach clench awkwardly.

“Otogi, I ain’t interested in you like this. Come on, man, move so I can get up.”

“You shouldn’t say no to something you’ve never tried….” Slender fingers began to fumble with the button on his pants.

The upside to this was that Jou found his hands free. He grabbed Otogi’s wrists and shoved the other boy away hard. He tried to sit, but he only managed to fall backwards again. “I said I ain’t interested. You’d have more luck getting into Honda’s pants than mine and he’s straight as a steel ruler.”

“You think that ass is straight? You are as blind as he says... Do you have any idea how many girls he’s gone after to try to coax you into a threesome? He swore you were straight too, but I thought that the worst that could happen if I tried was that I’d piss you off. Does this mean you are straight?” Otogi sat down on the bed beside him, smiling.

“Honda is straight. If he were gay, I’d have been all over him years ago. I think you’ve had too much to drink, Otogi.”

“Pot and kettle, Jou. We could be hot together, you and me. Tell you what, let me have one kiss. Just one real kiss. Then, if you’re still not interested, I’ll leave you alone.”

Jou tried to shake his head but found his lips crushed under Otogi’s. Otogi shoved Jou down on to the bed, falling on top of him and never breaking the kiss. The passion in that kiss was exciting at first, almost intoxicating, but there was a gentleness behind it that just didn’t feel right. It was controlled, calculated, and perfect. There was no sloppiness, no desperation, no need in Otogi’s kiss. When Kaiba kissed him, the other boy poured every drop of longing and need into his kiss, make Jou’s heart swell with the sheer knowledge that Kaiba not only wanted him, but wanted him so much that he could hardly contain it. Otogi’s kiss just felt manipulative and fake by comparison.

Jou placed both hands on Otogi’s shoulders to push the other boy away again. Somehow, his hands were pulled off of Otogi’s shoulders and twisted, and then his entire body twisted too. Jou found his face shoved into the quilt on the bed before he could react. “You are so hot. Trust me, Jounouchi, you won’t regret this.”

“I still ain’t interested.”

“After that kiss? You’ve got to be kidding me?” He felt both of Otogio’s hands grip his ass. Jou braced his stomach, the rolled over quickly, whipping his feet around as he did so. He felt his right foot connect with Otogi’s cheek, and in the semi-darkness he saw the other boy go flying.

Semi-darkness wasn’t right. Hadn’t Otogi shut the door? Jou was fairly sure he had. Pushing himself up, he turned towards the door and saw a familiar silhouette outlined against the light pouring in from the hallway.

With his trade-mark trench coat, Seto Kaiba stood leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest. “Well, well…. Lover’s spat?”

“Go to hell, Kaiba,” Jou hissed, trying to get back on his feet.

“Seriously, Kaiba, you’ve got to learn to mind your own business,” said Otogi, on his feet once again and rubbing his cheek. “Although, if you’re interested, I suppose we could share—hey, stop!” Otogi screamed and fell to the floor.

Jou heard the snap before he realized what had happened. He was vaguely aware that there were other figures in the hallway behind Kaiba, but he couldn’t see who they were.

“What the fuck!” Otogi screamed. “You broke my fucking arm! You fucking psychopath!”

“Beats being a fucking rapist.” Kaiba knelt down beside Otogi. “Shall we call the police and go to jail together? I’m game if you are.”

“God damn it, call a doctor you heartless dick!”

“No, I don’t think so. I’m already busy. See, I came to get my watch back from Jounouchi. Moutou can call a doctor for you, if he thinks your sorry ass is worth helping. Yugi! One of your guests needs help!” Seto shouted over his shoulder.

“I didn’t fucking do anything!” Otogi yelled.

“Only because you’re a weakling. Taken down by a drunk Mutt? I think that was the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen.”

Jou couldn’t help laughing. “That ain’t fair, Kaiba. You’ve seen him try to duel.”

Jou was rewarded with the sight of a broad smile and the deep, mesmerizing sound of Kaiba’s laughter. “So, do you have my watch, Mutt?

“Kinda. Backpack. Downstairs,” said Jou, pronouncing each word carefully.

“I am not going through your stuff, Mutt. I don’t want to end up with fleas.”

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’.” Jou got to his feet, walked passed Otogi and Seto and slowly headed downstairs. Halfway down the stairs he swayed and felt a firm hand on his lower back, steadying him.

“Just grab your bag and I’ll give you a ride home,” Seto whispered.

Jou managed a nod. He grabbed his backpack, tried to listen to something Yugi was saying, and felt the same firm hand on his lower back, steering him out of Yugi’s house through the game shop. Seto guided him down the street half a block and gently shoved him into a small black sports car. After Seto climbed in the driver’s seat, he glared at Jou. “Do not throw up in my car.”

“Not like it’s such a big deal. It’s just a car,” Jou grumbled.

“It’s just a Ferrari and you will not throw up on my leather seats!”

As Seto started the car, Jou dug through his backpack and found the metal watch Kaiba had tossed at him that day in the library. “Here ya go,” said Jou, holding out the watch.

“Keep it.”

Jou stared at Kaiba, his brain slowly piecing things together. “It ain’t special or anything? The engraving… ‘For showing me how to stop wasting time,’ it says.”

“I know what the engraving says.”

“It just…. It sounds like something a friend would write, is all.”

“It was from a friend. Not the type of friend one gets together to hang out with, since she’s more than twice my age, but a friend. It means a lot to me, so if you ever lose it or pawn it for something stupid, I’ll kill you.”

“So, back there, you just did that to protect me?”

Seto huffed and placed both hands on the steering wheel, looking everywhere but at Jou.

“You did, didn’t you?”

“If you must know,” Seto turned to stare out the driver’s side window, “I followed you upstairs to take advantage of you while you were drunk. When I saw what was happening… Well, I thought it’d be funny to watch Otogi get his ass kicked.”

“No, you didn’t,” said Jou, surprised at the certainty in his own voice.

“How could watching you kick Otogi’s ass not be funny?” Seto asked, his face rigid and utterly serious.

“I meant about the other thing. You would have taken ‘Togi up on his offer to share if that were true.”

Seto shifted the car into first gear and pulled away from the curb, his eyes glued to the road. Jou recognized the downtown streets and tightly packed apartment buildings. Seto drove smoothly, going slow enough not to jostle Jou’s already upset stomach. Despite the beer, his head was clearing a bit. He stole a few sideways glances at Seto, thinking about how much things had changed between them. After they finished school, Jou would only see the Seto at tournaments, and then only if he made to the finals. Just like all of his friends, he and Seto would be going their separate ways, too.

They were at a stop light when Jou finally found the nerve to say something. “I don’t suppose,” Jou took a deep breath. “Well, you wouldn’t want to go somewhere, would you? I mean, with me? Tonight? I don’t really need to be home right away….” He reached over the stick shift and touched the inside of Seto’s thigh.

Seto’s expression didn’t change at all. When the light changed, Seto put the car back in first gear and stalled it when he took his foot off the clutch too soon. He re-started the car, swatted Jouss hand away, and continued driving. Instead of heading to Jou’s apartment, he turned towards Kaiba Corp and parked on a side street, turning off the car and headlights before he looked at Jou.

“Yeah, one-time thing, no need to call me an idiot or make fun of my memory. Listen, my place is close to here, I’ll walk the—" Jou didn’t get to finish.

His brain must have still been a bit fuzzy, because otherwise he was sure he would have been able to make sense of how he’d ended up pinned to the passenger’s seat with Kaiba straddling his hips, kissing him with all of the need and longing that Jou found himself craving. Not that he was about to complain. Jou pulled Kaiba close, grabbing his trench coat in both fists, wanting to touch every inch of him, wanting to feel his weight crushing him. He kissed Kaiba’s lips, his face, his neck, and every other bit of skin he could access.

“Mutt,” Kaiba whispered, in between shuddering breaths, “We’re not doing this.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Jou, before pulling Kaiba’s ear into his mouth.

“Oh fuck….” Kaiba moaned. Both of his hands found their way to Jou’s shoulders and pushed him away. “No. I mean we are really not going to do this. You taste like whiskey. How much did you have to drink?”

“Just three beers. Damn it, money bags, I’m fine.”

“You don’t taste like beer. Did Otogi hand them to you, by any chance?”

Jou froze.

“Have you ever tasted beer before, Mutt?”

“Well, no, not really. I’ve never wanted to drink. I don’t want to end up….”

“That dice freak was trying to get you drunk enough to fuck him, you idiot!”

“That wasn’t just beer?”

“Did it all taste the same?”

Jou nodded.

“It wasn’t just beer.”

“Oh.”

“I should have killed that twisted little fucker.”

“Alright, I get it, you’re the protective type. So we’re…?”

“Not doing this tonight,” said Seto, pressing his forehead against Jou’s until his breathing calmed down. “But listen, because I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. It would be a bit ridiculous to say that I don’t want you, and I know you want me. At this point, I don’t care if I have to kidnap you and chain you to my bed, this will happen. But not if you’re too drunk to remember it or drunk enough to say you didn’t know what you were doing. I don’t want that.”

Jou took a deep breath, filling himself with Seto’s scent, and sighed. “Would it matter if I said it wasn’t the alcohol?”

“No.” Seto’s voice was cold, but he was still on top of Jou, still resting his head on Jou’s forehead.

“What if I told you that I’ve been dreaming about having sex with you on that table in the library every night for the last two weeks?” Jou smirked when he felt Seto’s shoulders tense under his hands. Jou shifted so his mouth was over Seto’s ear. “If I told you that I haven’t been able to go into that bathroom without getting hard? That I haven’t said anything about the dog comments because I have this fantasy that it’s some kind of code for saying you want to do it doggy style?”

Seto’s breathing had sped up again, and Jou ran his hands down Seto’s back, thrilled with the way the he trembled at his touch. He brought his hands around and pulled Seto’s belt open, then his pants. 

“I said it isn’t going to happen tonight,” Seto insisted, catching Jou’s hands with his. He leaned back, smirking down at Jou. “But I wouldn’t mind breaking into the library tomorrow night.” Seto brushed him thumb over Jou’s lips, moaning when Jou sucked his thumb into his mouth and nibbled on it. “The library. The bathroom. Up against the door in our home room class. The gym showers. Up against your locker right in the middle of the hallway. I am very willing to spend my Sunday night on extra-curricular activities. How about I meet you there at ten?”

Jou let his head fall backwards and groaned. After two weeks of sexual frustration, he could handle waiting twenty-four hours. He didn’t like it, but he could handle it. “Ten,” he agreed, nodding. “But I really will walk from here. My head feels a bit better, and if I get out of a car like this in a neighborhood like mine.”

“Is it really that bad?” asked Seto. Jou knew from the way the brunette had headed towards his apartment without directions that Seto probably knew where he lived. He was either asking to cover up the fact that he’d gone out of his way to learn where Jou lived, or because he really was too ignorant to recognize the ghetto-qualities of Jou’s street.

“Not for me. But that’s because everybody down my street knows that I don’t have anything worth taking.”

“And if they see you getting out of my car…. Fair point. I suppose you’d probably get in trouble at home, if your dad knew.”

“Oh, he knows,” Jou said automatically. After a moment, it occurred to Jou that Kaiba wasn’t supposed to know a damn thing about his dad. He chalked that up to Kaiba being obsessed with research. “He’d be mad, but only cause he doesn’t like you. I’d be fine.”

“Really? He’s not upset that you’re into guys?”

“Nope, he’s just upset that I’m into you.”

Seto scooted back into the driver’s seat. He had a stunned expression on his face. “I didn’t anticipate that.”

“He’s not the problem. I’d probably be mugged before I get up my front steps,” Jou announced, a little too much glee in his voice. “It wouldn’t be so bad if you drove a normal car, or even had a normal license plate.”

“A lot of people put their name on their license plate,” Kaiba insisted.

“Yeah, that’s true, but for most people it’d be Kaiba 1, or even Kaiba 3.”

“What’s your point?”

“Kaiba 49?”

Jou was relieved when Seto chuckled. “Fine,” the CEO conceded. “If we’re saying goodnight here, do I get a goodnight kiss?”

Jou leapt at the chance. He leaned over the stick shift and cupped Seto’s face, kissing him gently but with as much tongue as he could shove down Seto’s throat. He felt giddy when he pulled away. Seto Kaiba was smiling.

He opened the door but stopped half-way out of the car. “Hey, Kaiba? Nothing’s changed, right? I mean, you still hate me, right? Whatever happens tomorrow won’t change that?”

Seto’s ice blue eyes met his. Jou didn’t see a hint of hatred in them. There was a quiet understanding, and a bit of amusement, but no hatred. “Yes, Mutt. You still hate me, I still hate you.”

“You’re still gonna act like an asshole and I’m still going to kick your ass for it?”

“You mean you’re going to try to kick my ass for it. But,” Seto blushed so brightly that Jou could see the pink tint to his cheeks in the dim yellow streetlight, “You were right about the dog comments.”

At home, Jou found the rice he’d made when he woke up still in the fridge, untouched. That meant his dad was either still nauseated from the withdrawals or had decided to drink most of his calories for the day. Jou quietly slipped into his bedroom, checked to make sure the bars were in-tact, and wedged the chair under the door, and stripped down to his boxers to go to sleep. Not that he’d actually be able to get much sleep. Reluctantly, Jou let his hand slip down to his still hard cock. He shut his eyes and imagined him and Seto coincidentally getting to home room early and acting on Seto’s fantasy about screwing him against the classroom door.

Afterwards, as he tried to drift off to sleep, he wondered if he really was as messed up as his dad seemed to think. If Otogi was right, and Honda really was gay and wanted Jou, why had he never noticed any signs? Sure, he noticed that his best friend was hot, but he’d never actually fantasized about him. And when he kissed Otogi, all he had thought about was that he didn’t kiss as aggressively as Seto. It was fighting with Seto that turned him on. Their arguments, their physical fights, their wrestling matches. It was Seto’s aggression and energy that made Jou quiver.

If he were with Otogi, if he could love Otogi, he’d never have to worry about how the other felt. He would never have to pretend that sex didn’t matter. If Honda were really interested in him, things would be perfect between them. Honda was his best friend. They didn’t have everything in the world in common, but they had enough in common that they’d probably be happy together for a long time. Try as he might, though, Jou couldn’t imagine himself actually having sex with either of them. He could appreciate that Otogi had nice eyes and that Honda had the perfect, athletic body, but he didn’t want either of them the way he wanted Seto Kaiba. Of all the guys he could like, he liked the one who hurt him.

He had never fantasized about anyone beside Seto, now that he thought about it. Of course, from talking to a lot of the professional whores in his street, he knew that there were people out there—men and women—who couldn’t get off unless they were hurt bad enough to let everything go. But he’d never fantasized about Seto hurting him. Holding him down and forcing himself on him, yes, but not hurting him.

Jou rolled over, trying to shut his brain off. He could always blame his attraction on Nakamura. If the doctor hadn’t insisted that Kaiba liked him, Jou might never have thought about the other boy as anything but an enemy. It was Nakamura who inspired him to whisper into Seto’s ear that day in the arcade. Maybe that had been the man’s goal all along. He was Seto Kaiba’s personal physician, after all. He prided himself on making sure that Seto was in optimum physical and mental health. It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for Nakamura to take it upon himself to improve Seto’s emotional health by trying to get them to hook up. Of course, Nakamura had done everything he could to keep Jou and Seto apart, to keep them from killing each other, he’d said once. But Jou could see the other man telling him to stay away from Seto just for an excuse to plant the idea of being with him in Jou’s head. Despite the strange obsession with formality that Nakamura displayed regarding Seto, and his wife’s obvious displeasure with their mutual boss, Nakamura seemed to genuinely care about Seto’s wellbeing.

And he cared about Jou, too.

No mattered what he did with Seto tomorrow, and no matter how much he ended up getting hurt when Seto was finished with him, Jou felt a little better about the fact that he could whine to someone who actually knew what kind of person Seto was. Nakamura may have been just as manipulative as Seto, but Jou was sure that the man thought of Jou as a friend.

Despite taking care of his hard on, Jou didn’t sleep well. He was so anxious about what had happened with Seto that he hadn’t been able to stop tossing and turning. He got out of bed early, took as long a shower as the hot water heater allowed, and set some rice to soak again. Since it was Sunday, he would have to walk to the Nakamura’s house. That meant that there was no bus to hurry for, so he could take him time and relax this morning. By nine o’clock, he’d eaten, found clean clothes, and tried to pick up the living room a bit. By ten o’clock, he knew he’d have to get going if he wanted to get a decent amount of work done today, but he had to check on his dad first and let him know that he’d leave food for him in the fridge.

Jou knocked on his dad’s door. When there was no answer, he turned the knob and pushed the door open a crack. 

“Dad?” He called softly. He pushed the door open a bit more. “Dad…?”


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Seto was having a hard time focusing. The Kaiba Land blueprints were coming together wonderfully, all three of the Duel Monsters video games that Kaiba Corp was developing were ahead of schedule, and he was positive that the quarterly reports for his upcoming board meeting were flawless. He was almost regretting making Nakamura-san and her assistants come in on the weekend, but he wanted to make sure that there was nothing in the reports he wasn’t prepared to discuss the next day. There were too many people on the Kaiba Corp Board of Directors who would pounce on any inconsistent figure or questionable record and use it against him. He’d finished reviewing the details of their profits from the duel disk system, reviewed the budget projections for the completion of Kaiba Land, and was about to start on the R & D projections when his secretary came in and bowed politely.

“I said we were only to be interrupted if it was an emergency!” he snapped.

“It is an emergency. An urgent message for Nakamura-san,” said his secretary, handing a small piece of note paper to his accountant.

The older woman took the note with her thanks, and a slight bow. As she read the message, her expression dropped and her face paled.

“Is everything okay, Nakamura-san?”

Nakamura Sakura looked at him with her mouth agape, a look of shocked disbelief etched on her beautiful features. Tears were pooling in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

She closed her mouth, a few tears rolled down her cheeks, pulling her mascara down with them. “Forgive me, Kaiba-sama, but I don’t think I’ll be of any use to you this afternoon. I must beg permission to leave and attend to a family emergency.”

“Is Tenchi alright?” Seto asked. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“My husband is fine, Kaiba-sama, thank you for your concern. I’m afraid the emergency concerns my foster son. Please, may I go to him?”

Seto rose to his feet and held the door open for her. “Of course. I can have my driver take you if you don’t think you can drive.”

“Thank you, but no. I really must hurry. Please, excuse me.” Nakamura-san bowed to the executives around the table and raced out of the room, leaving her open files, her brief case, and the scrap of paper with the message on it on the table.

Seto unfolded the note read the message. ‘K’s father overdosed last night. K found the body this morning. Don’t know how long he sat there alone with the body before I arrived to check on him. Trying to get him to leave the apartment, he won’t listen. Please help, Tenchi.’ 

Seto shivered and set the note down. He closed Nakamura-san’s folders, packed her brief case, and set it on a side table in case she returned for it. He would bring it to her house after he finished going over the quarterly reports if she didn’t come back for it, and tell her she could take however much time off she needed.

“I didn’t know the Nakamuras had taken in a foster child,” one of the older men across the table said conversationally. “Such a lot of work, on top of her duties here….”

“They adore him,” said one of Nakamura-san’s younger assistants. “He’s an older boy from a troubled home, but Nakamura-san was so impressed with him she felt compelled to help him. The poor boy had been close to blind his entire life, and managed to score average marks in school despite his disability. With the medical care the Nakamuras’ have provided, his sight has been restored and he seems to have a very bright future. Nakamura-san talks about him constantly.”

“Hm. I hope the boy is alright,” the man across the table said sympathetically.

Seto returned to his seat, staying above the idle chit chat of his employees, as he always did. He finished going over the R & D budget, refusing to let himself imagine that somewhere in the city, some low-class twerp had the bad luck to stumble upon his father’s corpse. His imagination conjured up images of the grime and decay of Jou’s apartment, images of a twelve year old boy cowering in the corner, torn between fear, grief, and guilty relief at finding his father’s body.

Seto didn’t want to start that train of thoughts, but as the numbers ran together before his eyes, part of his brain still actively reviewing totals, he thought about the loss of the three parents he had known throughout his life.

Seto could hardly remember losing his biological parents. A police officer and a social worker had come to his school, pulled him into a small conference room in the office, and told him that his parents had been involved in an accident. He listened passively, not really understanding what the adults were trying to tell him. The social worker told him that his little brother was fine, that his parents had dropped Mokuba off at day care just a few minutes before the accident. Then the woman asked him if he understood what was happening. 

He hadn’t understood anything. 

At seven years old, he was in a class with twelve-year-olds. People were always asking him if he understood things, and he’d found that so long as he said he understood, he could usually figure things out as he went along. He got more treats and more praise when he said that he understood. When he said no, he had to stay inside during recess and go through lessons again. So he’d said yes, he thought he understood, when he really didn’t have a clue.

After the social worker arranged for Seto and Mokuba to go into separate foster homes, funerals were organized. At the funeral, a few of his dad’s co-workers had bowed to him, but no one said anything. The only thing he had understood was that Mokuba’s foster parents couldn’t handle him. Their own parents had learned early that, while both brothers were gifted, Mokuba had a sensory integration disorder that made it very difficult for him to behave himself when there was any kind of new stimulation. It also made it impossible for him to wind down and take naps like a normal two-year-old. He watched Mokuba’s foster mother treat him like an imbecile because of the disorder, and he saw the frustration in his baby brother’s eyes. He had understood that Mokuba was going to be placed in an orphanage, where specially trained staff would be able to address his needs.

Seto had carefully analyzed and considered his options, then did the unthinkable. He threw a fit. Seto always took everything he did quite seriously, and that included upsetting people. Where a normal child’s tantrum would generally be finished within an hour, he kept screaming, kicking, and even biting for six days. His foster parents, finally fed up with trying to deal with an obviously disturbed child, dropped him off at the same orphanage. Once he had his brother back and could make sure no one treated Mokuba like a moron, Seto calmed down. Another foster placement had followed, along with another week-long tantrum. After six more failed placements, the social worker finally sat down to speak with Seto herself. He had quietly explained that he would not go into another home without his brother, and that if Mokuba had to stay in the orphanage, than he would, too. The social worker had tried to argue that they had different needs, and that Seto had a very good chance of finding a family to adopt him because he was so intelligent. Seto had told the middle-aged woman that the only thing he needed was his brother, and that if anyone wanted to adopt him, they would have to adopt Mokuba as well.

For years, Seto had used his good and bad behavior to manipulate potential parents, trying to charm them into wanting him and then into wanting Mokuba. Once they read Mokuba’s medical file and realized that the boy would need occupational therapy for years before he could attend school with other children, many tried to adopt Seto alone. Then, with a calculated patience, Seto would adjust his behavior to become every adoptive parents’ nightmare.

When Kaiba Gozoboro was visiting the orphanage to see the results of a sizeable donation he’d made to the facility, Seto was excited to find that he’d encountered an adult who didn’t seem to be an idiot. Seto had wormed his way into the man’s company with a chess game that he almost won. Gozoboro had been so intrigued that he had opened the negotiations himself—offering to get Seto out of the orphanage and provide him with a real challenge if Seto could beat him. During the game, Seto had alternated between flattering Gozoboro’s ego and feigning innocence about the stakes that the man was offering. When Seto forced Gozoboro into check mate, Seto had insisted that he wouldn’t leave without his younger brother.

Gozoboro had said that their bet had been for Seto, not for any extra baggage. Seto told Gozoboro that Mokuba was just as smart as him, if not smarter, and that he would be a fool to pass up the chance to adopt two boys who would become the smartest minds of their generation. Gozoboro had the nerve to pat Seto on the head and tell him that being able to win one game of chess did not qualify Seto as the smartest mind of his generation. As the old tycoon wandered away, Seto had made the ultimate bet. He bet he could beat Gozoboro in under twenty moves. Gozoboro accepted, promising to adopt both brothers if Seto could win so easily. Seto beat him in six moves.

The adoption was formalized the next day and Seto and Mokuba packed up their few belongings and carried them out to a waiting limosine. Seto went back inside to get his last suitcase and stopped in the room that he and his brother had shared for several years. Next to Mokuba’s bed was a small, wallet-sized picture of their family before the accident. Mokuba didn’t look at the photo as much as he used to, but Seto had spent many nights holding the picture and crying himself to sleep. He hadn’t understood that his parents were dead at first, but he knew they were gone. But if they were going to persuade Gozoboro Kaiba to keep them, and truly earn the name Kaiba from the older man, he would have to set aside his grief. He would also have to deny Mokuba all of the memories and joy of knowing about their parents. He would tell no more stories about mom and dad, he would not try to keep their memories alive, he would even cast aside their name. He would have to become both of their parents in Mokuba’s eyes. He would have to put everything he had into becoming a Kaiba.

Seto left the photo in the room and walked away.

Inside the car, Gozoboro had explained that he did not need a family, did not want two snot-nosed kids trailing after him while he was trying to get work done, and would not tolerate any of the behavior that was recorded in the staff notes from their files at the orphanage. They would work, they would study, and they would train in martial arts and etiquette. When they could be of use to him, Gozoboro might put up with them. If they failed him, he promised that he would dump them on the streets in a heartbeat. During that drive, Seto began to understand just what type of man his new adoptive-father was, and that he would have no choice but to exceed the other man’s every expectation if he was going to keep his brother safe and provide for him. Seto was ten at the time. It didn’t take long for Seto to successfully set aside his grief. He had devoted himself to Gozoboro and made sure that Mokuba never crossed the older man’s path.

He was twelve the first time he had ended up in Gozoboro’s bed. Seto refused to think of what had happened between them as abuse, although he knew that the law would characterize it that way. Seto had started things, though. Even though Gozoboro was careful about the boys that he made use of sexually, they didn’t escape Seto’s attention. The fact that they were all young, were slight of build, and had long brown-black hair and blue or green eyes hadn’t escaped Seto’s attention, either. The first time, Seto had found Gozoboro stumbling through the mansion looking for Mokuba, too drunk to hold his tongue. Seto reasoned that if this was one of Gozoboro’s expectations, than it was Seto’s responsibility to make sure his needs were met. It was certainly preferable to letting the older man force himself on Mokuba. The next morning, Gozoboro had been furious enough that he beat Seto senseless.

When Seto regained consciousness, he found the other man inside him again, thrusting hard enough to hurt him. For two years things had gone on like that, although the beatings became less frequent when Gozoboro learned that Seto was willing.

The night things ended, Seto had come to this very board room and found Gozoboro touching Mokuba through his clothing. The younger boy was squirming uncomfortably and crying. Seto offered Gozoboro the smile that he knew made the older man eager, then he told Mokuba to go down to the arcade. That night Seto did the first impulsive thing that he’d done in his entire life. He offered to suck Gozoboro off in front of the window. As he did, he listened to Gozoboro talking about how hot both of his boys were turning out, and how much he couldn’t wait to have both of them at once. He leered and told Seto about his fantasy of watching Seto take his little brother while Gozoboro fucked Mokuba’s mouth. At fourteen, Seto was an expert at manipulating his adoptive father. He pushed the other man’s cock out of his mouth and started talking, playing on the fact that he knew the other got off on the thrill of sex in public and coaxed him out on to the balcony, offering to let Gozoboro bend him over the rail and fuck him where the whole world could watch. Gozoboro had taken Seto by the hand and charged out the door, eager to finish what Seto had started. Seto had grabbed Gozoboro’s wrist, pivoted on his hips, and thrown the other man as hard as he could.

Seto wasn’t stupid enough to sit there and relish the moment of Gozoboro’s death. He’d hurried to Gozoboro’s office and edited the security footage that had caught the whole incident on tape. It didn’t take him long. Soon he was absent from the scene altogether, and the only thing the security footage showed was Gozoboro molesting Mokuba, the boy leaving, and Gozoboro rushing out to the balcony and diving over the edge.

He hadn’t even thought about Kaiba Corp stock and inheritance at the time. But, by the time the police arrived, quietly confiscated the security footage, and called Seto and Mokuba’s original social worker, Seto had realized that the two of them now controlled fifty-five percent of Kaiba Corp’s stock. He took a lesson from Gozoboro on how to deal with the social worker, dragging DFS into court and forcing them to recommend legal emancipation for Seto and that he be appointed as Mokuba’s guardian. At the emergency board meeting that followed Gozoboro’s death, Seto had already persuaded all but Gozoboro’s Big Five that he was the only one qualified to take over Kaiba Corp.

Seto knew better than to think that there might be anyone else in the world who would ever view death as a catalyst to make one’s life better. But he thought that it was a fairly optimistic point of view. A small section of his brain once suggested that there was nothing normal about looking on the bright side of seduction and murder, but Seto quickly silenced that part, reminding it that following that idea to its logical conclusion meant that he would have to view ethics as absolute values. Down that road were arguments that a mother who fails to make sure her infant car seat was totally secure should be held just as accountable for the child’s death as a serial killer was for the deaths of his victims. Seto’s own unique brand of situational ethics allowed him to go to work every day. It even allowed him to enjoy the quiet view from the balcony of his boardroom without any twisted emotional entanglements.

The only person who seemed to know what happened was Roland. The bodyguard had slipped a few times, hinting that he knew more about Gozoboro’s suicide than he should. That was enough to make Seto suspicious, and he’d spent several nights checking security permissions before he’d found, to his horror, that the original security footage had been archived on a separate network, and the only one with permission to access it was the head of Kaiba Corp Security. 

For the first year or so after Gozoboro’s tragic suicide, Seto had kept expecting the large bodyguard to come to him with some kind of blackmail attempt. But it had never happened. When Mokuba had been kidnapped, Roland had been by his side, searching just as frantically for the boy as Seto himself. When they had to search separately, Roland had handed Seto a gun and explained its use. He’d also explained that, given Seto’s position, if he allowed himself to develop a reputation for showing mercy to his enemies he would only put Mokuba in danger throughout his entire life. Seto had taken that advice to heart.

When Seto had gone back to delete the original footage, he’d found that Roland had deleted it himself shortly after Gozoboro’s death. In the computer’s trash file he found a file that matched the original file name still in-tact. Instead of incriminating video, it contained a typed note. The note was an apology, nothing more and nothing less. It was unsigned, but since only someone with access to the original file could have written it, there was no question in Seto’s mind that the bodyguard had meant for Seto to find it.

Seto shook his head, trying to force himself to focus. He closed the quarterly report and glanced out at the same balcony with a smile. He wondered if losing Roland would compare to what a normal person might when a parent dies. Seto had taken great pains to make sure that he would never have to find out. Roland was one of the highest paid security experts in the world, and he controlled a force the size of a private army to keep Seto and his employees safe. Still, Seto had insisted on interviewing each of his own bodyguards, and he took the opportunity to tell them that making sure Roland never took a bullet for him was just as much a part of their job as making sure that he never took a bullet himself.

For a moment, Seto imagined himself sitting over Roland’s body in a dingy apartment like Jou’s. The image almost made him laugh. Roland could take on the entire world. If his honor demanded it, Seto knew that the other man would have the courage to end his life appropriately. He wasn’t going to overdose in some shit hole and leave a young boy to figure out how to cope alone. And Roland would never be in a position where honor would demand that he take his life. The relief that flooded through Seto at that realization was enough to lighten his mood. Now he just had to make sure that he would never find Jou’s body in some stinking, filth saturated hell and Seto could completely relax.

He was going to take care of that tonight. He’d meet Jou by the school, spend the night persuading the Mutt that he would never be able to live without Seto, and then lock the Mutt in his bedroom until he agreed that he wouldn’t run back to his pathetic excuse for a home. It didn’t really matter if the Mutt agreed to stay with him or not, just so long as the Mutt agreed not to go back to his father. Seto wouldn’t object to getting the Mutt his own apartment if he felt like he still needed space. Of course, it had to be an apartment worthy of Seto’s time and furnished in the best of taste. With a big bed, Seto reminded himself. After tonight, he’d be able to keep his Mutt safe, happy, and well fed forever. Then Seto would never have to spend another moment not worrying about him. It was going to be great.

All Seto had to do was keep himself distracted for a few ore hours. Just keep busy, keep his mind focused, and the time wouldn’t drag by like it had earlier that morning. He’d been awake until four in the morning, cursing himself for not dragging the Mutt home with him and just waiting for him to sober up. Seto was actually surprised that tasting the whiskey on Jou’s breath hadn’t killed his desire right there, since it was a taste he thought he had firmly associated with Gozoboro, but he had spent the entire night wishing he’d taken the blonde idiot up on his offer. 

Somewhere around two in the morning, he had accepted that he would never be happy if the events in the school bathroom really did only happen one time. He needed the Mutt. 

Kaiba finished his review of the quarterly report, thanked everyone on his staff who had come in to help double check figures and projections, and then packed up his own briefcase. He grabbed Nakamura-san’s briefcase too, then left the office. Nakamura-sans home was located just a few blocks from his own, so he had Roland swing by.

The Nakamuras’ housekeeper opened the door. “Kaiba-sama,” she bowed low. “Welcome. I am sorry that my master and mistress are not home. If you would like to leave a message and calling card, I shall inform them of your visit as soon as they return.”

“Thank you, but no. I know that Nakamura-san is dealing with a family emergency and I wouldn’t dream of taking up her time at the moment. However, she left her brief case at the office, so I took the liberty of returning it.” He held out the brief case for the woman.

“Thank you, Kaiba-sama.” There was another bow.

“Is the Nakamuras’ foster son alright?”

The woman’s eyes welled with tears. “She told you about what happened?”

“A bit.”

“We all hope he’ll be okay, and hope he’ll stay here with us from now on. He loved his father very much, despite their problems. He’s been here so much lately, working on that ridiculous garden day and night…. I hope he knows how much we all care about him.”

“Yes,” Seto said, thinking quickly. He always tried to take an interest in his immediate staff. Sometimes learning and remembering a few key details about someone was all it took to insure that his people were fiercely loyal to him. “Sakura-san mentioned her garden. It’s become one of her favorite subjects. I know the timing is horrible, but could I persuade you to show it to me? It sounds like such a dramatic change from the last time I saw it.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind,” the housekeeper smiled.

She led Seto through the wester-style house and on to a large back patio. In the setting sun, what had been a traditional back yard had been transformed into beautiful garden with a winding coy pond and waterfall.

“Now I see why she is so proud of it. And you say that her foster son has been helping with the remodel.”

“Not helping, organizing. The garden was his design and he’s done pretty much all of the work. You should see the walkway while you’re here, it’s breathtaking.”

Seto followed her around the pond and onto a mosaic walkway that looked like something he should have commissioned himself. Long, Chinese black and white dragons were set in a mosaic style, intertwined like Celtic knots. Each pair of dragons was nearly twenty feet long. Seto knelt down by the beginning of the design. The white dragon had two shimmering blue stones set as its eyes, the black dragon had a single red stone set as its eye. In the second set of dragons, the white dragon was in a profile view with a single blue eye and the red dragon had two gemstone-like red eyes. “This is beautiful. Was it done by hand? I saw some contractors using pattern pieces that had been manufactured together, when we redid plaza in front of Kaiba Corp. I had requested dragons at the time and was told that the patters weren’t available.”

“All done by hand. I’ve watched him use toothpicks to trace the design. He’s quite talented.”

Kaiba straightened up, a happy, tranquil feeling making him feel more relaxed and lighter than he had all day. “Thank you for showing me. I feel very fortunate to have seen it.”

“You are most welcome, Kaiba-sama.”

Seto thought about the dragon mosaic on the way home. It would be a pity if the Nakamuras’ foster son didn’t go on to study art. It was an ambitious project for a kid. Seto would have to find out more about him.

When he got home, he found Mokuba playing video games. He checked the boy’s homework, which was perfect, as always, and then disappeared into his home office. He wasted a good hour and a half obsessing over what he was going to wear. When he had wrinkled everything in his closet that wasn’t a suit or made of leather, he found himself in the outfit he usually wore to nightclubs. After examining the leather pants, which were a bit more snug than he remembered, he decided that Jou might appreciate wrinkled blue jeans and a t-shirt more than a hot BDSM look. It was eight o’clock before he got in the shower, and nine before he stood, naked, staring at the pile of rumpled clothing on his bed. He got dressed and shoved everything in the hamper, knowing that it would all be clean, pressed, and back in his closet by noon the next day. He made the bed quickly and then attempted to tease his hair into a more stylish shape. He failed, of course. His hair had decided on one shape when he was a young boy and had, despite the abuse of thousands of dollars worth of styling products, never changed. It was a family curse—Mokuba’s hair even ate most scissors.

Seto checked his appearance in the mirror and regretted that he could look a lot better. Somehow, the same look that made him hard when he stared at the Mutt just didn’t work on him. With luck, he wouldn’t be wearing the outfit that long anyway, so it really didn’t matter. 

He slipped down the back stairs and out through the kitchen, grabbing the keys to a plain sedan he kept for his cook and housekeeper to run errands with, and drove to the empty high school. It was five minutes to ten when he turned off the car and tried to relax while he waited for the Mutt to show up.

He managed to sit still until five minutes after, then he couldn’t keep from drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. At ten minutes after, he started the car and drove along the route Jou walked each day. He saw a few people on the streets, but none of them had blonde hair. He drove into Jou’s neighborhood and stopped a block short of the Mutt’s building, thankful that he’d decided to stick with the casual clothing after all. He kept his distance from the other people on Jou’s street and made his way up to Jou’s apartment. The door was still broken in, but now a single strip of police tape hung across the frame. Seto ducked under the police tape and raced through the apartment, terrified of what he might find.

The apartment was empty.

There was no sign of his Mutt. There was also no sign of Jou’s father. If Seto hadn’t seen the apartment before, he’d have assumed that someone broke in and that he was walking through the scene of a robbery, but Seto knew better.

When he was certain the Mutt wasn’t home, he drove back to the school, only to find that the blonde still hadn’t shown up. Seto parked in the empty parking lot and waited for a few minutes, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. He scanned the side of the school and the buildings around it, hoping to see Jou slouched in a shadow. He watched the street and the sidewalk, refusing to think about the possibility that the Mutt had stood him up.  
Two hours later, he was refusing to brood about the fact that the Mutt had probably only agreed to meet him as a joke. He and his idiot friends were probably at Yugi’s right now, making bets about how long Seto would be stupid enough to wait for the mongrel to show up. Seto griped the wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white.

At midnight, he forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down. 

The was police tape over the door of Jou’s apartment kept demanding all of his mental attention. He wasn’t going to get angry or panic and do something stupid. He would go home, get as much sleep as he could, and then track the Mutt down after the quarterly board meeting tomorrow. If he was in the hospital, all Seto would have to do was call. If he had finally ended up in a foster home, he would call Nakamura and demand the name of Jou’s DFS caseworker. He was disappointed that he would have to wait to claim the Mutt, but he would claim him. He just had to be patient and not lose his head.

Seto started the car and drove home slowly. He was too tired to think about Jou anymore tonight. He was physically and emotionally worn out. For once, he was exhausted enough that his mind was finally quiet. He might actually be able to get to sleep without having to take the sedatives his doctor prescribed.

He drove through downtown Domino, staring straight ahead. He forced his eyes to avoid the sidewalks. He wasn’t going to let himself get excited every time he spotted someone who matched Jou’s build or profile. He wasn’t going to drive around the entire city like some starving predator who had lost his prey’s scent.

Or rather, he wasn’t going to keep doing that all night.

Seto turned towards his home, disappointment welling inside him and threatening to break through the cold mask he had perfected over the years. He would not break, would not let himself feel hurt or used. He was Seto Kaiba.

As he turned down his street, he kept repeating the phrase in his mind. He was Seto Kaiba. He wasn’t allowed to be upset. He had better things to do than chase after some runaway Mutt. Compared to the rest of the city, the quiet upper-class street was dead quiet. There were no stop signs or traffic lights, so Seto relaxed, and reached up to enter his security code in the remote clipped to the driver’s side visor. A hundred yards ahead, his wrought iron gate swung open. He turned into the driveway, glanced into the rear-view mirror. A slim figure, dressed in dark colors, had slipped through the gate behind his car. Seto nearly hit the panic button on the remote, which would summon a dozen armed security guards in seconds, but stopped when he recognized the shape and movement of the body beneath those dark clothes.

He couldn’t help the satisfied smile that crept up on him at the sight. He had always wanted a puppy to follow him home. He quickly forced the smile away, replacing it with what he hoped was a convincing pout. He began scripting how he would use Jou’s failure to show up to manipulate him. He stopped the car near the door to the kitchen and hoped out quickly. He strode towards the fence where Jou was lurking, not bothering to stay calm as he went. From the way Jou’s body froze, he obviously saw Seto coming and assumed that it was someone else. When Seto got close enough to see the golden color of Jou’s hair and eyes, Seto saw Jou sag with relief.

He was about to shout at Jou, to demand an explanation, to grab him by the throat and kiss him until he lost consciousness, but all of his plans evaporated when he saw the broken look in Jou’s eyes. Jou’s golden skin was so pale that he had the clammy off white look of a corpse, his eyes were swollen and red, and his whole body seemed shrunken, defeated. Seto stopped a few feet away from the Mutt, trying to recall if he had ever seen a look so empty, so crushed, in Jou’s eyes before. Despite Jou’s many failures, and the shame and hardships of his impoverished life, Seto had never seen anything that could extinguish the fire in Jou’s eyes.

He did not demand an explanation. He pulled Jou into his arms and crushed the smaller boy against his chest. Jou collapsed against him as though every drop of his strength was gone. Seto gasped as he felt Jou’s whole body spasm and tremble under his hands, like his whole being was sobbing even though he was too exhausted to cry.

Seto sighed and carefully picked Jou up. Jou clung to his t-shirt and shoulders as Seto carried him into the house. He set Jou down in his own bed and lay down beside him, holding the Mutt as he clung to Seto and trembled. After about twenty minutes, when Jou’s breathing finally evened out, Seto pulled one of his hands free and pulled out his cell phone. He sent a quick text message to his secretary instructing her to reschedule tomorrow’s board meeting, then he pulled Jou close and tried to sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Jou felt stupid for feeling like things had snuck up on him. He had read the signs and symptoms; he knew that his father was dying. He hadn’t expected to wake up and find his father already in the early stages of rigor mortis. He’d expected months of sitting next to a hospital bed, two or three rounds of reassuring hospital and city social workers that he was coping just fine, and a few horrible days once his dad finally slipped into a coma.

He had not expected to be furious. He’d expected grief, sure, and pain, but not anger. But anger was the only emotion that filtered through the haze that had enveloped him that morning. He was angry at his father for always acting like a controlling bastard, right up to the end. He was angry at the Nakamuras for the way they exchanged quiet glances, which Jou knew meant they each thought it was the only decent thing Jou’s old man had ever done for him. 

Most of all, though, he was angry at the world. Life seemed to go on all around him as though nothing had happened. Kids still walked down the street smiling and laughing, businessmen in suits still rode the bus with their faces buried in open newspapers, and downtown Domino still bustled just as it always had. Even his own body insisted on being disrespectful by demanding that the mundane aspects of his own life, like eating, sleeping, and going pee, still happened.

And he was furious at the fact that his fate seemed to have been decided without anyone bothering to consult with him at all. He had every intention of staying by his old man’s side. He was going to be there, to be a good son. Jou wasn’t going to run off to school in America and abandon him. But the old bastard had taken away that choice. The Nakamuras had already started arranging a respectable funeral and talked about flying to the States with him in August to help him get settled in his dorm room. And he couldn’t possibly say no. His father had taken his own life so Jou could have this chance, and Tenchi had very tactfully pointed out that there would be nothing more dishonorable to his dad’s memory than to let that sacrifice be for nothing.

When the Nakamuras wished him a good night and left him sitting on the large western style bed in their guestroom, Jou couldn’t help feeling like he’d been played. He felt like they’d all conspired against him, forcing him into doing what they thought was best for him. He felt like they were treating him like some baby who needed them to make decisions for him. He was not going to dishonor his dad, but he also wasn’t going to start his life with Sakura-san holding his hand, dictating what school his father would be proud of him for attending, and Tenchi-san telling his that he should honor his dad’s suffering and memory by going into medicine. His dad had died to give him the chance to live his own life, and that was what Jou intended to honor. He was going to make his own choices, and whatever he managed to do with his life was going to be through his effort—not through their charity.

He was leaving Domino. It meant leaving his friends, his sister, the Nakamuras, and Kaiba, striking out on his own. That was easier to think about than to accomplish. He had no money, no car, and no idea where he was going to go. But whatever he did was going to be his choice. 

The one decision he had already made was that he wouldn’t leave Domino without at least one night of memories with Kaiba to look back upon. He took everything he owned, which consisted of his backpack and its contents, and slipped out the Nakamura’s back door. Kaiba’s mansion was only a few blocks away and Jou made it to the gate outside just a few minutes after ten. He waited outside the gate, assuming that Seto would return home as soon as he realized that Jou wasn’t at the school. Hours later, Jou was wondering if Seto had bothered going to the school at all.

If Seto had stood him up, Jou would just have to confront him about it. It wasn’t like he had time to feel shitty about it, spend a few weeks avoiding the bastard, then track him down and start this whole mess all over again with another fight. He would just have to march into the Kaiba mansion and deal with the bastard. Of course, he hadn’t counted on no one answering the bell at the gate, or the gate being closed tight, with bars spaced every two inches and a slippery concrete wall around the rest of the house. Breaking in was going to be tricky.

He waited by a side gate that led into a driveway, knowing that sooner or later someone would have to go in and out. When a plain car drove in through the gate at midnight, he slipped in behind it and hurried to the side of the gate, trying to avoid the huge box-shaped security cameras that hung everywhere he looked. The best place to avoid them, he reasoned, was directly beneath them, so he side-stepped until he was beneath one of the cameras and waited to see where the car and its driver went.

He hadn’t expected the car to stop, or for the driver to get out and charge towards him. He also hadn’t expected to see Kaiba’s face and eyes shining at him from within an outfit that looked like it might belong to his gardener. Jou read so many emotions in Kaiba’s eyes the moment the taller boy recognized him. Pain, confusion, and lust all warred with one another, only to be replaced by a look that might have been concern. Jou was so relieved that he couldn’t even think of something to say. Seto pulled him into a hug that he would have mistaken for affectionate and caring, if Jou hadn’t know him better.

Feeling the solid warmth of the other boy’s chest against him, Jou collapsed, the emotional exhaustion of the day finally catching up to him. He let his mind shut down, let the world around him go, and focused on nothing more than the feel, the smell, and the strength of Seto’s arms around him.

Time passed, although Jou couldn’t say how much. When the darkness in his mind finally cleared, he was still clinging to Seto’s chest. But he was comfortable and warm, tucked into a giant bed in a dark room. On the bedside table near Seto, a glowing clock told him that it was almost six in the morning. He’d wasted the entire night holding on to Seto like a frightened baby. If he didn’t leave today, the Nakamuras would find a way to persuade him to stay, to accept their pity. He wouldn’t have another chance with Seto.

The other boy had fallen asleep beside him, still in the same jeans and t-shirt he’d worn the night before. Jou squirmed close to him, hesitated for a moment, and pressed his lips against Seto’s. Seto responded instantly, and when Jou pulled away to say that he knew that faker had been awake the whole time, he found the brunet’s tongue in his mouth before a single word could escape.

When he felt Seto’s hands move to his shoulders to push him away, Jou grabbed Seto’s wrists and pinned then to the bed. He rolled over on top of Seto and straddled his hips, determined not to give Seto a moment to question what was happening. He let go of Seto’s wrists and pulled his t-shirt up, exposing his chest. Jou let his fingers trail down that toned chest, past Seto’s slender abs, to trace the soft tuff of brown hair that began an inch above Seto’s pants. When Jou wiggled his fingers into Seto’s tight jeans and stroked the head of his cock, Seto squirmed and began to pull at Jou’s clothing. Seto’s adept fingers had both of them naked in what seemed like an instant, and the heat of Seto’s body pressingly tight against his drove Jou into a frenzy where nothing mattered except touching more of that white hot skin. All Jou could do was feel. He rubbed every part of himself against Seto and savored the friction of the other boy’s skin scraping his nipples and pushing at the head of his own straining erection.

He almost whimpered when Seto rolled them over and reached a hand away for a moment, but just as quickly as his attention left Jou, it came back again. Seto kissed his jaw, then down his neck and chest. Jou felt him shift lower and opened his eyes to seem Seto wrapping his tongue around the head of Jou’s cock in a motion that nearly made Jou cum instantly. Jou watched Seto take his entire length inside of his mouth.

Just as the unbelievable heat enveloped him, Jou felt a single finger urgently pushing its way inside of him. Jou was surprised that it didn’t hurt. It was a bit uncomfortable, but not as painful as he always expected. Seto pumped that single finger in an out of Jou quickly, then added another and did the same. When he eased in a third finger, Jou whined slightly. It still didn’t hurt as bad as he’d feared, but Jou had to rock his hips to try to get Seto to keep going. “It’s not bad, damn it. Just do it, please!”

“Not yet,” said Seto, slipping his fingers free. He licked Jou’s cock before moving back up to his chest and neck, then he dove to the side and dug a small tube out of the top drawer of his nightstand. “Lube is a good thing, Mutt.”

Seto applied the slick liquid to his own cock, and shifted back until he settled between Jou’s legs. With a single smooth thrust, Seto was buried inside of him. He didn’t wait for Jou to relax and accept his size, but he rolled Jou’s hips up and placed both of Jou’s knees over his shoulders, then gave a gentle, experimental thrust. When Jou moaned and tried to pull Seto’s cock deeper into him, Seto grabbed Jou’s hips and began to thrust into him fast and hard, driving into Jou’s prostate until he wanted to scream. 

To Jou’s shame, he came within seconds. He exploded over his own chest, swallowing a scream as he did. He looked into Seto’s eyes expecting to see scorn and ridicule. Instead he saw the most lustful expression he had ever seen in those ice blue eyes. They seemed to burn with desire and need as Seto continued to fuck Jou at the same frantic pace.

Seto’s fingers found Jou’s limp cock and, using his own cum as lube, teased him back to a full erection. Seto stroked Jou in time with his thrusts, driving Jou insane with pleasure, until every thrust and stroke made him cry out. It was a matter of minutes before Jou’s body tensed again, but this time Seto shifted his hand to the base of Jou’s cock and squeezed, stopping Jou’s orgasm. He thrust harder and faster, pushing himself to completion, and then released Jou’s cock, sliding his fingers gently up to the tip to catch every drop as Jou sprayed into his hand. He squeezed the sensitive tip and buried himself deep inside of Jou, filling Jou’s passage as he shuddered with pleasure.

Jou couldn’t make sense of anything in the blissful oblivion Seto had driven him into, but as he came back to his senses, he realized that Seto had collapsed beside him and pulled him into his arms, holding him so tight that Jou couldn’t budge. He tried to shift away from Seto, just to get more comfortable, but the brunette tightened his grip, wrapping both arms around Jou and pinning him to his chest.

“Well, that wasn’t quite as kinky as the table in the library would have been, but I’m not complaining,” Seto whispered.

As the euphoria faded, Jou realized that he wouldn’t be able to slip away without Seto noticing. Not this morning, anyway. Seto would inevitably have to work, though, and Jou suspected that Seto would throw him out before Mokuba woke up, just to avoid the chance of the younger boy seeing him there. He’d be kicked out with plenty of time to catch one of the morning commuters’ trains to Tokyo. He would have plenty of time to pawn his cards, buy a plane ticket, and get the hell out of the country before DFS, Sakura, or Yugi could stop him. He let himself relax, lulled into a dose by Kaiba’s steady breathing.

When Jou woke up again, he was still in Seto’s gigantic bed, wrapped in his blue silk sheets. Sunlight streamed through the open curtains, making the entire bed glow with warmth. For a few moments, Jou forgot about the day before and just snuggled into the warmth. He turned away from the window to feel the sun on his back, and as he did so his forehead scrapped against a piece of paper set on the pillow next to him. Sitting up, he found an envelope on the pillow with his name on it. He tore it open and pulled out a folded sheet of notebook paper. As he unfolded it, a small stack of money slipped out of the notebook paper and fluttered to the bed. The letter contained a hundred thousand yen.

A sour feeling began to form in the pit of Jou’s stomach. Every instinct he had told him not to bother reading the note. Just to tear it up, leave the pieces on top of the money, and get away with what little pride he had left. The letter, just like Seto’s insults, was cold. ‘Security has been notified that you are to be admitted to the house tonight after dark. I expect you to be waiting for me. However, Mokuba doesn’t leave for school until noon today, and I do not want to have to explain the situation to my baby brother when I return home from work. Take a cab to school, have a nice lunch. They money I’ve enclosed should be more than enough.’

There was no signature, of course. Not even an initial. Nothing that might ever be used to link the note to Seto. As if he were really that afraid that Jou would run to the press and betray him.

Jou stared at the money, shaking his head slowly. He was torn between a feeling of disbelief and self-loathing. He couldn’t believe that he had been so stupid. There had never been any chance Seto wouldn’t think of what happened between them as something special. He was Seto friggin’ Kaiba, after all, and Jou was nothing. Except maybe a low-class whore, he realized. He choked on the bile that rose in his throat at the thought of what had happened. How could he have misjudged things so badly? How could something that meant so much to him be nothing more than a night with a prostitute to Kaiba?

Jou refused to cry. Girls cried, and he was not a girl. He rose to his feet on shaking legs and, despite the pain radiating through his back with each step, he gathered his clothes and shoes and dressed quickly. He grabbed his bag and made sure that everything was still there—his deck, his only change of clothes, the money he had from his last paycheck from Sakura, his American passport, and all of the papers he needed for his university application package.

As he looked at the thick stack of envelopes, and the old American passport, a sad smile formed on his lips. How did Kaiba’s opinion matter now? The worst he could do was tell all of Jou’s friends that he was a whore. Someone he would never see again talking shit about him to people he would never see again? He wasn’t just planning on walking away from Domino, but from his life as Jounouchi Katsuya. All of Kaiba’s insults and the crap he’d pulled with his tournaments didn’t matter now, because none of it would be a part of his life tomorrow. He flipped open the passport and looked at the picture of himself as a rambunctious twelve-year-old. The name on the passport was as familiar as an old baby blanket. Joey Wheeler. He’d been named after his grandpa, and out of deference to the old man, he had resisted adopting a Japanese name even to this day. His father enrolled him in school as Jounouchi Katsuya, but he insisted on going by Jou because it was as close to his real name, to his grandpa’s name, as he could get away with.

Jounouchi Katsuya had made his share of stupid mistakes in the past few days, but Joey Wheeler was about to visit his childhood home for the first time in eight years. No one could call Joey Wheeler a mutt or a whore. Joey Wheeler was an American citizen, a decent student who had spent time overseas, and smart enough to get into any college he wanted. Joey Wheeler could do anything. And best of all, Joey Wheeler had absolutely nothing to do with billionaire CEO Seto Kaiba.

He paused at the door and checked the time. It wasn’t even passed ten yet. Jou shut his eyes tight and unclasped the watch. He tossed it across the room, into the pile of money he’d left on the bed. “Goodbye Kaiba,” Jou whispered.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In these next couple of chapters, Jou hides in America, grows up, and begins to understand his own sexuality. It's a long interlude, but necessary so that Jou can face Seto as an equal when I throw them back together again.

Chapter 10 - Five Years Later

Jou crouched behind the open patrol car door and checked his side arm. The clip was full, there was a round in the chamber, and the safety was off. He heard his badge number over the radio clipped to his shirt collar, activated the receiver, and replied, “This is 348.”

“497 wants you and 308 to fall back to the barricade to assist with crowd control,” came the tentative instructions. From the sound of the officer’s voice, he did not want to be the one replaying these instructions. On the other side of the patrol car, his partner started screaming in a rage of Spanish swear words.

“Ah, dat’s a negative,” Jou said carefully. “497 is not on the scene, does not know our position, and we’ll likely get shot if we try to fall back. Tell the big Daddy that 308 has noted his concern, but she’s—”

Another radio cut him off and a stream of Spanish curse words filled the channel. Jou wanted to rub his temples and shake his head, but he couldn’t reach his head through the riot helmet. He heard people laughing from the patrol car beside them. Luckily, the rant coming from his partner quickly drowned out everything else.

“I cannot believe that asshole! How dare he signal me out like this! As if I’m any less capable of doing my job today than I was last week! I am going castrate him when I get home!” From behind the passenger door, Jou could hear the sound of an assault rifle being primed with typical efficiency. “And to make somebody else do it! I know he’s got a radio sitting on his desk, and he knows damn well that mine is on and working! I’m going to skin that fucker alive!”

Ahead of them, their Sergeant coughed audibly and then signaled for them to get ready. Jou watched the hand signals as the sergeant counted down.

“Hey, Esme, if you’re done throwing a fit about the Lieutenant, we’re moving in two!”

“Oh.”

And then they were sprinting, shifting in a running crouch from one covered location to the next.

Ahead of them, five officers with riot shields moved forward as two others crouched down to fire pepper spray grenades. Six grenades went through the glass store front, filling the entire connivance store with oily red dust.

Instead of signaling for everyone to surge forward, their Sergeant held up his fist for the team to stay put. Pepper spray was something that was most effective if it had time to work in a contained area. Nine times out of ten, people would come out on their own and surrender if they had to sit in it long enough. Sure enough, the doors burst open and four men rushed out, their hands on their heads. Three others rushed out coughing. It was obvious from what they’d watched before the grenades that the last three were hostages, but in a situation like this, everybody went down, everybody got handcuffed, and the details of who was who were sorted out after the scene was secure. It was standard procedure, and even though Jou hadn’t seen the point at first, he understood now. As his partner had explained to him the first time he’d tried to help a victim after a hostage situation, the hostage could just as easily have been one of the hostage takers who had ordered the hostage to trade clothing with them, or have formed a bond with the hostage taker and now be just as dangerous as the hostage taker.

With all of the professionalism that she failed to exhibit when dealing with her husband, his partner charged forward, assault rifle raised, and shouting. “On the ground! On the ground! Arms out straight beside you! Arms out straight!”

As the tactical response team carefully approached the still fogged store, Jou holstered his gun, pulled out a pair of handcuffs and approached the closest man’s outstretched hand. Just as he was trained, and as his partner had drilled him to, he slapped one cuff on, secured the man in an arm bar, then shifted over the man to handcuff his other hand. “Bring your other hand around behind your back!” He ordered.

The man beneath him coughed and swore at him, and tried to pull away from the arm bar. Since Jou already had his wrist in a gooseneck, Jou just tightened his grip. “Bring your hand around behind your back! Bring your hand around your back!” After about twenty seconds of squealing, the man complied. Jou secured the other cuff then did a quick search of the man for weapons.

When the man was secured in the back of their patrol car, Jou checked on the rest of the scene and found that every suspect was secure, the hostages had been clearly identified and being treated by EMTs, and someone had propped the doors to the store open to let the cloud of pepper spray fade. Even from thirty feet away, the shit was making him cough.

His partner was talking with their Sergeant, her head down but nodding occasionally. Probably getting lectured about proper radio protocol when she still, technically, had a trainee assigned to her. As he approached, all he heard was, “I’m going to have to talk to the Captain about it….”

“Yes, sir.”

“Pardon me, Sergeant, I hate to interrupt, but can we take this guy back to the DC and get him hosed off? He’s already thrown up once in the car and his clothes are covered in OC. Per policy, we’ve got to get him cleaned up within thirty minutes.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’re all headed there anyway. I want reports before you go off shift.”

“Yes, sir,” Jou said with a nod.

In the patrol car, Jou took the wheel while his partner sat brooding. Their passenger asked if he could get a shower a few times, and Jou promised that they were going to do just that. After they brought him to the nearest detention center and made sure that he was cleaned up, Jou started filling out paperwork while his partner sat, still in her riot gear, brooding. He finished his report, printed off a copy, then reworded slightly it and printed a copy for her.

“Esme, you’ve got to snap out of it. He’s just worried about you,” Jou said gently.

“He’s an ass! He is not my supervisor, he is not my doctor, and he has no business telling everyone in the department that I’m not fit for duty, especially over the damn radio!”

“I know, I know…. But, in all fairness, if he had tried to say it face to face you would have probably knocked his ass out. And if my pregnant wife were about to get shot at, I’d be worried too.”

“It’s not like anything has changed! I didn’t wake up four weeks ago suddenly old, fat, and out of shape! You know right now it’s only the size of an olive? An olive! And it’s tucked behind my pelvis anyway, so even a baseball bat to the stomach wouldn’t be likely to hurt anything. But you men, with your genitals just hanging out there unprotected, think I’m the one who’s fragile?”

“I’m sure the Lieutenant didn’t mean that,” he said automatically. She took the report and scanned it quickly.

In the eight months since he’d graduated and joined the department, he had learned to take his partner seriously, even when she was dramatic.

Esmerelda Boyle was an excellent training officer, and a great partner. No matter what the situation was, you could count on her to be right there beside you, or charging ahead in front of you if you couldn’t keep up. She was one of the instructors for the department’s tactical response team—teaching swat members ground fighting, defensive tactics, and weapons qualification classes. The only reason she had not advanced in terms of rank was because of the certainty that she would end up stuck behind a desk if she were to apply for promotion.

Despite her skills, and her impeccable record, her gender worked against her more than it did for most of the other female officers. Esmerelda was beautiful. With an angelic face, tanned skin, and long silk black hair, Esmerelda was known as the department beauty queen. It was a standing joke that anyone assigned as her partner either had to be a woman or gay, because her husband would throw a fit if she were paired with anyone else. It didn’t help that her husband had been promoted quickly and was rumored to be the next in line for Captain. Even though she was easy to work with, anyone who ended up paired up with her had to put up with her husband too, and he was a handful. A nice enough guy, and one who Jou had come to consider a friend, but a handful, regardless. On their first two weeks of night shifts, her husband Luke had shown up at random times to check on them. Occasionally he brought coffee. More than once, he’d wandered up with food and ended up riding with them for the rest of the night, making it impossible for them to actually arrest anyone because he was in the back seat.

After Jou assured Luke that he was actually gay, he’d backed off a little. Since Esmerelda had found out she was pregnant with their first child, things had gotten infinitely worse.

She handed the report back to him with several typos circled in red, whole sentences crossed out, and illegible notes in the margins. Jou sat back down at the computer to make the changes.

“Well, it looks like lunch is going to be a bust,” she said with a pout. “It’s nearly five. Man, day shifts aren’t supposed to be this busy.”

A soft chuckle came from behind the door. “Almost makes you wish you were back on nights when the only way I could piss you off was setting the alarm clock, hu?”

Esmerelda flug a pair of handcuffs at the open door, followed by two pens and an empty in-tray. Jou grabbed the desk phone before she could throw it, too. From behind the door frame, her husband’s blond hair peeked out cautiously. “Has she run out of things to throw?”

“There’s furniture,” Jou replied.

“Go away!” Esmerelda yelled, throwing a pair of keys hard enough to chip the paint on the door frame. “Since you obviously don’t think you can talk directly to me, I am not talking to you!”

“Look, I’m sorry about asking Wheeler to move instead of you, but you would have gotten upset if I’d asked you directly!”

“You miserable coward! You couldn’t even do that yourself! You had someone else ask Wheeler to tell me to move!”

“Well, you have been kind of scary and hormonal lately….”

Jou saw her mouth the word ‘hormonal’ and shut her mouth. Jou shook his head and printed out the edited report. Her husband was a nice guy, and a great officer, but he was a bit of an idiot when it came to dealing with his wife.

“Done!” Jou announced, handing her the report.

“Good,” she scribbled her badge number on the report and motioned for Jou to follow her. “You coming over for dinner tonight?”

“Ah,” Jou blushed and rubbed the back of his head.

“Good, let’s go.” She glared at her husband, her eyes narrow. “If you show up I’m going to throw you in the damn pool. You are not invited.”

She stormed out, passed her flustered husband. They handed in their reports, went their separate ways to get changed, and then Jou met her at her car. She threw another pen at Luke when he tried to approach her in the parking lot, then got in the car, waited for Jou to buckle his seat belt, and sped away. She didn’t have to drive far. She pulled into the driveway of an old Tuscan-style home in a small Hispanic neighborhood just a few minutes down the highway. Six other cars were already crammed into the driveway.

Ever since Esmerelda had introduced Jou to her family, she had been inviting him to her parents’ home for dinner at least once a week, insisting that he had no family of his own and she had plenty to share. Usually Luke came with them, but since Esmerelda found out she was pregnant, he’d only come along once.

The house was filled with the smell of spicy food, smoke, and with hearty laughter and conversations in English and Spanish. Even though he couldn’t follow a lot of the conversations yet, Jou had never felt more welcome anywhere in his life. Esmerelda’s mother, an old Hispanic widow who didn’t speak a bit of English, always cooked enough to feed an army at these weekly dinners. With seven biological sons, three neighborhood boys who hand ended up staying with her, and now Jou, she had an army to feed. He waved and nodded to some of Esmerelda’s grown brothers as she dragged him into the kitchen.

Her brothers were all similar, and it had taken a month before he could tell most of them apart. Each one had dark brown hair, deeply tanned skin, and had stacks of muscle that made them look roughly triangle shaped. Jesus was the youngest, and he spent his time working at a video store and skateboarding. He had built a skateboard ramp in his mother’s back yard as a teen, and every time Jou came over for dinner he tried to get Jou to try it. The one time he tried, Jesus ended up feeling Jou up as he tried to ‘help’ him to his feet after a fall. Jou insisted he was too clumsy for skateboarding after that.

Esme’s oldest brother Mario, on the other hand, Jou would have given anything to get felt up by. He was the reason Jou kept coming over for dinner. A martial arts instructor and part time bodyguard, Mario had the physique of a professional body builder. He was quiet, calm, and fun to chat with, and he had the most charming smile Jou had seen since he’d left Japan. Jou had accepted the offer of ju-jitsu lessons from the other man and had been training with him three times a week. Despite the sexy looks Mario sent him during some of their sparring sessions, he was a complete professional, never crossing the line physically or saying anything inappropriate. Since it had been a long time since he’d last had sex, Jou was so frustrated that he was pretty sure he would jump the poor guy if he ever got to spar with him alone. Unfortunately, Esmeralda was usually there to act as a chaperone.

Esmerelda’s mother shoved something into the oven, then hurried around the counter and kissed her daughter on the cheek, then kissed Jou just the same. Esmerelda plopped into a stool at the counter, dropped her chin into her hands, and began to rant in Spanish—complaining about how her husband didn’t treat her like an officer any more. Jou lightly punched her shoulder then wandered outside, knowing he’d find her brothers on the back porch. Five of them were sitting on a long wooden rail, laughing and cheering as two other brothers and three foster kids took turns dropping in on the skateboard ramp. Mario, who was nicely dressed for a family dinner, popped open a bottle of beer and handed it to Jou without a word. Jou nodded gratefully and drained most of the beer.

“Figured you might need something, after twelve hours of dealing with a hormonal Esme.”

“She’s not bad,” Jou insisted. “Luke, though…. You’d think he was pregnant himself with how much of a whiner he’s become.” One of the oldest brothers muttered something that sounded like agreement and nodded several times.

“Figures,” said Mario darkly. “You know he actually expected her to quit the police department when they got married? As if a girl who grew up fighting with us could ever be happy sitting around a house with a vacuum cleaner! I keep telling her she needs to come work for me, but she never listens.”

“She didn’t grow up fighting with us, she grew up fighting with you,” another brother called from the end of the porch. “After you taught her all of that ju-jitsu crap, I couldn’t pick on her without her putting my head through a wall.”

“And yet I find that I’m not at all sorry,” Mario said, smirking.

There was a collective groan as Jesus’ skateboard slipped out from under him while he was trying to land a trick. He tumbled, hitting the wooden ramp with his shoulder and then bouncing off to land face first on the plywood.

“Is he alright?” Jou asked.

“Who cares?” Mario whispered, standing directly behind him. Jou couldn’t help the way he tensed. Esme’s brother was standing so close to him that he could feel the heat radiating off of the other man’s sculpted body. From the way Mario chuckled behind him, Jou was pretty sure that the other knew exactly what kind of effect he had on Jou.

“He might actually be dead this time,” one of the others suggested, although there was a chuckle in his voice. No one moved to help him, though.

“No, he’s fine,” another insisted. On the ramp, their brother raised his hand, his thumb extended to the sky. “See, signs of life.”

That seemed to settle their concerns, so Jou didn’t say anything when they all sat by and watched as their youngest brother slowly pulled himself to his feet, or when he promptly fell back down on his ass again.

“Joey,” Mario said softly touching the small of Jou’s back, “Could I talk to you inside for a minute?”

Somewhere along the line of brothers, someone snickered.

Jou’s heart started to race at the feel of another person’s touch. He was sure that his entire body was blushing, so he didn’t dare turn around and face the other man. “Sure,” he said.

He took a step forward then turned around and headed back into the kitchen, avoiding Mario’s eyes at all costs. Once inside, he let Mario take the lead and followed him into the empty living room.

Jou took a deep breath, prayed his voice wouldn’t crack, and finally said, “What’s up?”

“Well….” Mario smiled at him with that damn sexy smile he always managed, “I was hoping I could ask you for a favor. You speak Japanese, right? Esme said you do.”

“Yeah. I spent eight years there as a kid. I never did get rid of my accent, but I’m better with Japanese than English. What do you need?”

“Well, one of the guys who refers clients to me has a few Japanese executives who want to vacation in Mexico in about five weeks. He’s looking for people with a close protection security license and who speaks Japanese. I’ve got the license and am good at the job, but….”

“I don’t think I can teach you Japanese in five weeks,” said Jou, confused.

“No, no, I wasn’t asking you to. I was hoping you’d come with me. They’re planning a seven-day, six night trip. Expenses are all covered, and the pay for the week would be about nine. We’ll have to get you licensed before we go, of course. It looks like he’s putting together a six-man team, so two guys per shift. I think you and I could work well together.”

A chance to spend an entire week in Mexico drooling over Mario in a nice suit? Jou was ashamed to admit how tempting that was. An image of a slender body wrapped in a perfectly tailored designer suit flashed through Jou’s mind. He tried to replace it with an image of Mario, but it didn’t work. The way Mario’s shoulders filled out the suit jacket in Jou’s imagination just wasn’t right. His mind kept whittling away at the form, the muscles, and the bulk until he was once again imagining the painfully familiar body of his first crush.

“Well, I have the leave saved up, but I make about fifteen hundred a week as is, and I need the money. I’ve got student loans to pay off.”

Mario smiled at him and shook his head. He let out a soft chuckle. “Nine thousand five hundred dollars. Plus expenses. You’ll need a passport, a vest, a small side arm, and a couple of suits. It’s hot, but you’re going to want something heavy enough to not bulge over a holster. And a bathing suit, I’d guess.”

“A bathing suit?”

“Yeah. It’s not a twenty-four hour a day job.”

“Ten thousand dollars as a bodyguard? For one week? You’ve got to be kidding?”

“How do you think I keep my dojo afloat?”

“Ten thousand dollars? Do we have to split it?”

“Nope.”

A chance to earn a lot of money and possibly seduce a man who turned him on almost as much as Seto? It had been five years and Jou still compared everyone to him. He hadn’t even slept with anyone else since then, but he was determined to get over the memory of his high school stalker one way or another. “What day do we leave?”

* * * * *

Six months later, Jou found himself in a suit that could have easily cost as much as one of Kaiba’s, standing in the same always-ready posture that he had learned from Mario and Esmerelda. His Spanish was improving faster than it ever had in the police department Spanish class, and now he could easily act as both a bodyguard and translator for their Japanese clients. Across a busy restaurant, the Mario stood in an identical posture, watching both entrances with a patience that often amazed Jou.

Their clients were primarily wealthy Japanese, but lately a lot of Euopeans had been hiring them, too. Mexico was just as dangerous as Jou had always heard, particularly for tourists who had someone in the world who might be willing to pay a ransom to see them alive again. Everyone from the Mexican mafia to the local police targeted tourists, either to rob them, con them, or to hold them hostage. Those who could afford to hired agents from American or foreign security firms to make sure that their loved ones or employees returned safely.

Ordinarily, the job was dull. But the first time it had exploded around him, Jou had found himself on an insane rollercoaster of adrenalin. Between returning fire, covering their client, and trying to radio for a car Jou had found himself ducking and running for his life. He managed to find a spot that offered enough cover to keep their client down and took the chance to reload his gun. As a police officer, getting into a tough situation meant sitting tight and waiting for backup.

Despite all of his dreams about action and being a hero, he’d never even fired his gun on the job. While that was usually the hallmark of a good cop, it wasn’t the fast-paced life that Jou had expected when he decided to major in Criminal Justice.

When Mario tossed him an extra clip and told him to get ready to run for the car, Jou realized that they were on their own. The local police were either too afraid of the gangs to do anything, or were on their payroll and probably shooting at them too. Whether or not they lived or died depended entirely on them—their resources, their talent, and their luck. Jou had always been lucky.

That day had taught him a lot about himself, including the fact that he really could stay calm through situations that would have most people blubbering like idiots. He put off dealing with the shock, set aside his emotions and went through the motions, just as he had trained to so many times. That day he had also learned that he would never be happy just being a police officer. The rush of getting out alive had kept him awake for nearly three days. For a while, he wondered if that was what the high from crystal meth felt like—when people seemed to have enough energy to get up again after being shot or hit by a car.

When he finally went back to work after that, the world felt like it was moving in slow motion. Esme had just starter her maternity leave and Jou was bouncing around the department, being assigned anywhere the department was an officer short. The end result was that he ended up stuck with old men who preferred to drive through rush hour traffic and provide officer presence to deter speeding. Jou didn’t see how anyone could speed during LA’s rush hour, when cars barely moved above a walking pace, but apparently it was important for motorists to remember that the police were there. He got so bored he’d started memorizing license plates for something to do.

After work, he shoved his rumpled uniform into his locker and headed to Mario’s dojo. Esme was very pregnant, so she couldn’t really train with them, but she was still there most afternoons, and Jou was looking forward to having someone to complain to. When he pulled into the dojo parking lot, he found the front parking lot was empty. He found Mario alone inside, placing a dozen recently disinfected blue mats on top of a large stack.

“Hey!” Jou shouted, hanging up his jacket and taking off his shoes.

“Hi Joey. Come on it, I’ll be done in a minute.”

“Take your time. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about anyway.”

“Not backing out on me, are you? ‘Cause with my sister out of commission I really need somebody to spar with.”

“I’m not backing out. But don’t you have students you can abuse, too?”

“Most of them are ten years old. Wouldn’t really be fair.”

“Some of those ten-year-olds are scary,” Jou insisted.

“Tell me about it. So what’s going on?”

Jou took a deep breath. He really needed to calm down. It wasn’t like he was going to ask the guy out or anything. “I… I put in my two weeks-notice today.”

“What? I thought you loved being a cop?”

Jou shrugged. “I guess the job just isn’t quite the same as my imagination. I talked to some of the guys we worked with on that last job. They’re kinda tired of freelancing it, and some have a lot of knowledge of the tech stuff, alarms and all that. I was thinking about going into business for myself, opening up a security firm. Close protection pays a lot better, and it’s a hell of a lot more entertaining. Plus, I like being able to travel. I was thinking about the whole industry though—residential and commercial security systems, automated monitoring, uniformed security guards, all of it.”

Mario whistled slowly. “Expensive. You’d have to be able to front hundreds of thousands of dollars to be able to get off the ground with automated security. The equipment and monitoring stations alone cost a fortune.”

Jou scratched the back of his head. “Well, I sorta put my house up as collateral. I already got financing for the whole thing. What I need, though, is people. Particularly someone to help train new guys, someone who I know to be fully capable of kicking ass.”

“Oh,” Mario smirked. “You’re worried Esme would say no?”

“She already said no,” said Jou miserably. “What do you think? Want to give up the freelance work and work for me part time? I could provide you with an endless supply of adult sparing partners.”

Despite his tanned skin, Jou could see the blush on Mario’s cheeks clearly. “Joey, I… No. You can hire me for specific jobs, and for training, sure, but I can’t work for you regularly.”

Jou kept his smile in place. “Why not?”

Mario smiled and turned back towards the mats, “I was planning on asking you to have dinner with me sometime, and that wouldn’t really work if you were my boss. I mean, if you were the boss everyone would be expecting you to fool around with some hot little secretary, and my typing skills are just not good enough to play secretary. Then there’d be issues on the job. In fact, there are already issues on the job.”

“You wanted to ask me out?”

“Yeah. And to say I really can’t take assignments with you anymore. I can’t seem to keep my eyes on our client when you’re around.”

“Honest?” asked Jou, although he knew from the other man’s smiles that he was. “I guess I’ll have to find someone else, then. So, dinner?”

“You said you weren’t going to back out on me tonight!”

“Right, right,” Jou smiled.

Jou took a defensive stance and blocked a few half-hearted punches. Mario took hold of his arm with one block and charged backwards, then pivoted his weight around, sending them both crashing to the ground. “Not paying much attention, Joey.”

Jou tried to move his legs but found that both were locked. He had one hand free and used it push the arm holding his other hand up, breaking the grip. He tried to roll o the side but Mario kept his legs locked and kept his hips on the ground. He managed to get half of his body out from under the larger man when Mario shifted his weight. Jou found himself flying through the air. He rolled over Mario and landed face down on the mat. Mario locked his legs again, pulled one of Jou’s arms into an arm bar, and balanced over Jou comfortably.

“So, now that you know…. Am I really that distracting, or are you uncomfortable with me now?”

Jou bent his knees, pushed his hips up off the mat and shifted so his shoulder was on the mat instead of his face and head. He tensed his abs and tried to roll forward. Mario would either have to let go of his arm bar or roll with him. Jou felt the fingers vanish from around his wrist. He pushed himself up on both arms and twisted his hips, sending Mario scrambling to get to his feet.

“Not going to answer?”

Jou blocked a side kick, grabbed Mario’s leg, and drove him to the ground. Instead of pinning the larger man down, Jou kissed him. For a moment, Mario returned his kiss and struggled against the hold at the same time. When Mario gained the upper hand, he flipped them over, stared down at Jou for a moment, and kissed him again.

After five years of dating random people hoping to find someone else who made him feel the way Seto had, Jou was desperate for the other’s touch. But as Mario slowed their kiss and gently began to explore Jou’s mouth with his tongue, Jou felt his stomach tighten and sink. He knew that Mario wasn’t trying to be timid, he was trying to be sweet. Unfortunately, his kiss was so gentle that it made Jou squirm, part of him trying to escape even as his brain screamed that he really did want this. Frustrated, Jou rolled over so he was on top of Mario, where he could increase the pressure of his lips on the other mans, increase the pace of their little sparring match.

Mario stopped him trying to rip open his gi and pushed him away. “Instead of going out, why don’t we just have dinner at my place?”

“How about an early dinner?” Jou asked, glancing at his watch.

“Perfect.”

Despite how things heated up between them at the dojo, Mario really did make him dinner. He made an Italian pasta dish, opened a bottle of wine, and even put on some soft salsa music. They made it through the entire bottle of wine and half of the pasta before Mario kissed him again. Jou tried to lose himself in the kiss, tried to feel the same passion he felt when they were sparring. Just like he had with everyone else since Seto, he tried to follow through. 

They made it all the way to Mario’s bed before Mario pulled away and smiled down at him, shaking his head with a sad expression on his face. “This isn’t going to work, is it?”

Jou felt humiliated. “Fuck, I’m sorry… I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He leaned forward on the bed, too ashamed to stay still staring up at the man he’d pursued for the last six months.

Mario shifted so he could sit down beside Jou. “I do,” he said simply. “I was hoping I was wrong, but now I know better.”

“Really?” Jou looked up, surprised that other man didn’t sound angry.

“My name’s not Seto,” said Mario, with a wry smile.

Jou felt his expression and his color drain. He had never mentioned Seto. Not to Mario, not to Esmerelda, not to anyone.

“I shared hotel rooms with you for nearly a month altogether. You talk in your sleep, Joey. But that’s not the only problem. I don’t turn you on.”

Jou shook his head. “That is definitely not it. You are one of the hottest men I’ve ever seen. Do you know how hard it is to control myself every time we spar?”

“I know,” said Mario, nodding. “But it’s the fighting that turns you on, not me. Every time I get you pinned your eyes glaze over like you’re in the middle of mind-blowing sex. I was hoping that I might get to see that look in your eyes for me, but it’s not there, Joey. I’m not what turns you on—fighting with me is what does it.” Mario rubbed his back in slow circles “And right now, I really wish it turned me on, too. I’m just not really into that whole dominance thing.”

“I am not a sub!” Jou insisted, unsure of why he was so defensive about the accusation.

“You’re a masochist, then?”

“No!”

“Well, either you get off on me dominating you or you get off on me hurting you. Since you don’t get off on my kissing you, those are pretty much the only options left. It’s okay, Joey. Everyone’s got their kinks, you know. And this way there shouldn’t be any issues with us working together.”

Jou looked at him in astonishment. “You’re still willing to work with me? After this?”

“I think we both need to find new sparring partners, but I think we can keep things cool on the job. So, what are you going to call your company?”

Jou blushed again, thinking of the only name he had managed to come up with. “I was thinking about Guard Dog Enterprises.”

“What? No! You need something professional. Something that makes your clients feel confident, like they’ve got a partner rather than an employee.”

“This is coming from a man whose own business advertisements consist of painting the word Ju-Jitsu on the front window?”

Mario rose to his feet and held out his hand for Jou. Jou scooted to the side of the bed and let the other man pull him to his feet. “It works. It tells people what to expect. Your clients already have expectations, but the name you chose is going to solidify them or break them. You need something that tells them that they’ve got an ally, someone to watch their back.”

“An ally? I’ll have to think about that.”


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 - Almost three years later

Jou felt his pulse race as he spotted a small dull reflection in the crowd. There were too many people, too much noise, and his nerves were frayed enough that he’d been jumping at shadows for weeks. Eight feet away, the ridiculously dressed teen pop singer, the one and only Chantel, who had insisted she needed the best security money could buy, was ignoring all of his instructions and hugging random fans from the screaming crowd.

Someone noticed how jumpy he was, though. “Location?” Esme’s voice came from his radio’s earpiece.

“Three to the left, blue baseball hat,” Jou replied quickly, moving a bit closer to the singer and placing himself between the girl and the quiet fan standing where he’d caught sight of the reflection. In his peripheral vision, he noticed three of his agents throwing people out of the way to get to the man in the blue ball cap. Jou kept his eyes moving between the singer and the man. The man was moving, too. He’d slipped to the front of the crowd and was pushing against the rope barricade, holding up a large sheet of paper in his left hand, as though asking for an autograph. His right hand stayed hidden behind the paper.

If Jou had been able to see his right hand, he might have relaxed. If Jou had a bit less experience with handguns, he might not have panicked at the angle of the other man’s arm. If Jou had been a bit less paranoid, he wouldn’t have seen the angle of the man’s arm shift as he pulled out the gun, and then he never would have moved in time. Jou had become a very paranoid person as a bodyguard. The first shot hit him in the chest, hard enough to throw him backwards into Chantel, and to throw both of them into the side of the girl’s limo.

The next five shots were quieter, muffled by silencers. The world around him had slowed down and narrowed into an adrenalin-induced tunnel vision and each pop seemed to trail a minute or more behind the previous one. Jou forced himself to climb to his knees and crawled over his client’s upper body, covering her head and upper body with his chest. He shut his eyes and took slow, deep breaths. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that breathing hurt, but the pain was just a distant ache, like a sharp pain being dulled by medication. Probably broken ribs, and Jou knew it would hurt like hell if he survived.

Sharp, perfectly manicured nails dug into his shoulder and neck and hoisted him off of the client. Esme, his only female agent, took the girl by her shoulders and dove into the limo with her. As the tires squealed, Jou rolled on to his back and took several deep breaths. The client was safe. The edges of his vision kept blurring, and he vaguely recognized uniformed police officers with weapons drawn swarming around him, some kneeling and shouting without words, as though the world was a television show and somehow he’d found the mute button. His chest burned every time he took a breath. He knew he should be worried, but he found himself relaxing despite the fact that the world was fading away. The client was safe, so whatever else might happen now was not his problem. The client was safe. Nothing else mattered.

He shut his eyes and let the world go. His life didn’t flash before his eyes, thankfully. He didn’t have many regrets to look back on. The one thing he truly regretted was running away after his father died. Leaving Japan and all of his friends was at the top of the list of things he wasn’t proud of. He regretted not staying and fighting it out with Kaiba. 

He regretted not opting for the thicker bullet-proof vest, too, but there was nothing to be done about that now.

* * * * * *

The sunlight filtered through thick bamboo window blinds, making a pattern of bright and dark lines that penetrated Jou’s tightly closed eyes and made his head throb. He yanked the pillow over his head turned away from the obnoxious reminder that it was morning. A tugging sensation at his left elbow pulled him the other opposite direction as he rolled on to his side, but with a grunt of effort he managed to turn on to his stomach despite the resistance. He kept his body rigid when the tugging at his elbow started to hurt, and when his chest started to burn. He took a deep breath and rammed the pillow down over his head with more determination than ever.

Someone near the window chuckled. “The kids weren’t joking, you really aren’t a morning person.” Jou went rigid when he realized he didn’t recognize the voice. He fumbled under the pillow, hoping to find a weapon, but felt nothing. That meant he wasn’t in his own bed. He controlled the panic rising in him by taking a few more deep breaths.

“It’s alright,” the voice said. “It’s me, Luke. Joey, I know you can hear me. It’s Luke. You’re in the hospital, but you’re okay. You cracked three ribs and you’ve got some major bruising, but you’re going to be fine. Esme went home to make the kids breakfast and drive them to a sitter. She was going to pick Mario up on her way back. They should be here any minute now.”

Jou pulled the pillow off his head and squinted into the morning sun. At the foot of the bed, still in his police uniform, was one of his closest American friends. His boots were propped up on the bed and his hands rested on his thick duty belt.

“You should be home sleeping,” Jou muttered, knowing the man had another twelve-hour shift in the evening.

Luke shrugged. “The more I hang out, the more overtime I get, so I’m not complaining.”

Jou huffed. “What, I don’t pay your wife enough, now you’ve got to do overtime? Wait a minute, how is hanging out with me overtime?”

“Ha! Thought you’d catch that sooner. You are under police protection, until you elect to refuse it, of course.”

“I refuse it. Go sleep.” Jou pulled the pillow back over his head. “Why am I on it?” he asked, through a tiny hole he made between the pillow and bed so he could breathe easier.

“You’re going to get a kick out of this…. The kid with the blue ball cap had no identification on him, no money, no wallet, no nothing. Just three guns, a nasty little knife, a set of ear plugs, and a dossier on you.”

“Ear plugs means professional. Why would he have a dossier on me? It doesn’t matter who’s standing between him and Chantel, if he gets a clear shot.”

“I was hoping to ask you why he had a dossier on you. Part of it is Japanese and part’s in Spanish. I can’t read the damn thing and even the department translator has had trouble. I would send it out to the university, but….” Without putting his feet down, Luke tossed him thick red file. Inside was a brief account of Jou’s entire life, from his birth in New Jersey, to his violent childhood, his dueling career, and his college education and career in security.

“I must have another obsessed stalker, to put all this together….”

“Well, the English part in the back is stuff I pulled from the internet. I’m not an obsessed stalker, though. No offense or anything, but you aren’t my type. I just couldn’t resist finding out what the infamous Joey Wheeler was like as a kid.”

Jour turned passed the printed kanji pages and found several clippings from his Duel Monster days and a translated version of his juvenile criminal record from Japan, and a copy of his father’s criminal record, too. The last page was a warrant for his arrest from the Domino Police Department.

“What the hell? A warrant? I never stole a thing in my life, Luke, you know me! I might have been a knee breaker, but I never stole anything, much less enough for a felony warrant! The rest of this is true, though. I disclosed it all when I went to the academy, and on my security license application, it’s all there.”  
“No, no you didn’t, I checked. You never listed ‘Geek’ anywhere on your application with the department, or your license application. Man, you played Duel Monsters until you were nineteen! What’s worse is now the kids are both mad because Uncle Joey never told them he was The Jounouchi Katsuya. They both want Red-Eyes plushies, whatever the hell that means.” Luke raised a single eyebrow when Jou winced at how badly his friend mangled his name. “Did I pronounce it wrong?”

“Everyone does. That’s why it’s Joey over here.”

“Got it. Do you know how annoying it is to have two three-year-olds waking you up asking to watch Uncle Joey play Duel Monsters on TV again?”

“The way those two can obsess about things, I can only imagine.”

“So, is the rest of that true?” Luke nodded down towards the folder.

Jour turned passed the single page that listed his childhood arrests, to the page after page that listed his father’s assault and child endangerment charges. “Yeah. The rest is all true. But I never stole nothing!”

Luke shrugged. “The warrant’s expired anyway, and there was a hand written note from an Officer….” Luke pulled out a small notebook and double checked. “Officer Hiroto saying the charges were made by an old enemy of yours and are probably bullshit—someone by the name of Kabia. Besides, it’s way the hell out of my jurisdiction, so what do I care? But shit, Joey, when you said you had it rough as a kid, I… I never thought you meant like that.”

“My dad wasn’t so bad. He was a drunk. He had good days and bad. But Kaiba…. He was asshole straight through. We weren’t exactly enemies when I left, but we definitely weren’t friends. I didn’t think he’d sink so low as to make up shit about me, though. I have never been a thief and he knows it!”

“And we know it. But, Joey, you’re missing the point,” came a deep, familiar voice from the doorway. “You were the target of that hit, not our client.” Mario and Esme stood in the door.

“Hi baby,” Luke waved. “Are the kids alright?”

Esme nodded. “They’re fine. I’m picking them up at five and our plane leaves at eight thirty.”

“You taking the kids on vacation?” Jou asked, noticing the uneasy tone of Esme’s voice. In the years they had all worked together they had learned to read each other like few others could, and she was definitely worried.

“Taking them to their grandma’s for a bit,” Esme said simply. “Until we know what’s going on.”

“The detectives who are investigating the shooting think it’s related to some of your work in Mexico,” Luke said simply. “They want you and all of your agents under police protection, or to take a long vacation. We figured now was a good age for the kids to spend a summer with my mom.”

Jou nodded slowly. Most of his work was in Mexico. The drug cartels had spent decades building up private armies, and the hostage situations had gotten worse. Jou had built up quite a reputation in the last few years, working with Mario down there. Being fluent in Japanese, Jou was one of their top choices for a bodyguard for any affluent tourist from Japan, and the first person most went to when it came to negotiating the release of a lost loved one. He had made more than his share of enemies south of the boarder. He’d taken Chantel on as a client so he could stay in the States for a while to let things simmer down.

“What else has happened? If it’s Wednesday, that means I’ve been asleep for four days.”

Mario and his sister exchanged a look, but said nothing.

“Something else has happened, I can tell from the look on your faces.”

“They hit our office when we would have been right in the middle of shift change. Everyone was providing coverage for clients or here, so no one got hurt. But, well, it’s a good thing you never scrimped on insurance,” Mario explained, his tone gentle.

“Also a good thing you never wasted money on a full time secretary,” Luke muttered darkly.

“Fuck, I’m sorry. We’ll get things sorted out, you’ll see. In the meantime, we’ll have to outsource our local contracts to other firms. I’m not going to make anybody work through this shit and we can’t jeopardize our clients.”

“Already done,” said Mario.

“Thank you.” Jou glanced at Luke curiously. “The only advice your department had was to take a vacation?”

“You know what the Mexican gangs are like as well as I do. They don’t forgive, they don’t forget, and when they’re not fighting each other they’re dangerous. I know you can take care of yourself, but, well, a vacation might not be a bad idea.”

“Change jobs and relocate, you mean.”

“If it comes down to that, yeah.” Luke nodded and reluctantly let his boots drop to the floor. “Alright, then I’m heading home to bed.” He rose from his chair, kissed his wife on the cheek, and waved at Jou. “Stay safe, Joey.”

“You too,” said Jou automatically. “I’m so sorry, both of you.”

“You’re not responsible,” Esme insisted. “We’ve helped a lot of people, Joey. Scare tactics like this are almost a tradition with street gangs. Think of it as a vote of confidence—it shows you’re doing a good job. We’re just being careful with the kids, that’s all.”

“She’s right,” Luke agreed. “We’ve got a whole pack of dogs at home because of my job, seems only fair that we should have to become paranoid over yours, too. You coming, Esme?”

“Yes. Mario’s car is at our place, so he’s taking mine from here. I’ll give it a few days and then call to check in, Joey.”

“Adios.” Mario watched the door close and then sat down on the side of Jou’s bed. Jou was surprised to see him looking ruffled. His curly brown hair was longer than it had been three years ago, and Jou often joked that Mario would look like him if he didn’t get it cut. He was dressed in a trim gray suit with a patterned vest, but the suit jacket was open and every inch of fabric was wrinkled.

“What’s our client’s status?”

“Annoying.”

Jou nodded. That meant she was safe. “What happened? I kinda blacked out.”

Mario’s perfect smile twitched for a moment. A look of deep pain flashed through his eyes only to be crushed in a moment. “I was moving towards the target when I heard the first shot. The crowd scattered. I was three feet away and had a clear shot. Esme got him first. She’s gotten faster. The target died on the scene. You covered the client, Esme got her into the limo and we took her back to her hotel. I didn’t find out about who the target was until three detectives showed up at the hotel. Despite his calm expression, Jou noticed that he was holding his hands in tight fists. “I know she’d kill me for saying it, but I really wish Esme would back off every now and again. She shouldn’t have to deal with stuff like this. So what’s the plan?”  
“Nothing,” Jou tried to sit up, only to find that the IV sticking into his arm didn’t have enough slack. He ended up propped up on his elbow. “Take time off, lay low, get the hell away from me, that sorta thing.”

“What are you going to do?”

He shrugged. “Leave the country for a while, I suppose. Maybe go back to Japan and find out why there is a warrant out for my arrest. Maybe assault the bastard who says I stole from him. Maybe enroll in culinary school and open a little bistro, who knows?”

“You never told me why you left Japan…. Whatever you were running from must have been big, if someone was willing to make up charges like that.”

“It’s personal.”

“Joey, if you can’t trust me, who can you trust? Besides, how can I help if I don’t know what’s going on?”

“Who said you get to help? You’re on paid vacation just like your sister, you should go spend it with your brothers.”

“Nah, you’re more fun. And I’m not going to let those bastards kill you.” The glint in his eyes contained all of the loyalty and devotion that Jou had come to rely on. “So what were you running away from?”

Jou felt his stomach clench at the sight of his worried frown. “It doesn’t matter. I won’t be in trouble back in Domino. I was in a gang as a kid, but I never made the kinda enemies I’ve made here. All I’ve got back in Japan are worried friends, I’m sure.”

“Worried friends, a felony warrant, and someone named Seto, you mean.”

“Kaiba. His name is Kaiba. Seto’s his first name and I don’t use it. Only friends are supposed to call people by their first name and he was never my friend. But the warrant, well, that’s just Kaiba. I don’t….” Jou was going to say he didn’t know what had crawled up Kaiba’s ass that could have made him so obnoxious, but that wasn’t technically true. He felt the blush start near his stomach and shoot through his cheeks to stop at the tips of his ears. There was no way to stop it, so he didn’t bother trying.

As Mario took in Jou’s blush his smile cracked open into a look of shock. “Kaiba’s the one who introduced you to all that kinky shit? Well, I had that figured out already. You stole a hundred thousand dollars from a boyfriend?”

“No! Yen, a hundred thousand yen. And no, I didn’t take a dime of his damn money. He sorta offered it, though.”

He folded her arms across his chest. “Sort of offered it? Come on, Joey, I’ve got all the time in the world and I need something to take my mind off of the fact that I’ve got all the time in the world. You might as well tell me everything, or else….”

“Or else what?”

“Or I call Esme back and tell her to torture the information out of you.”

“That’s really not fair.” Jou settled back into the hospital bed, wincing as his ribs protested. “You remember me saying I used to play Duel Monsters as a kid, right?”

Jou told him the whole story. Leaving the gang, finding Yugi and making real friends for the first time, dueling to save his sister, and earning enough money from dueling to help pay bills throughout high school. He described how he and Kaiba always fought at school, mostly because Jou was too dense to figure out just what his teenage hormones were screaming at him every time the brunette would pin him to the ground. Then he told Mario about the day he had woken up and found that his father hadn’t survived whatever cocktail of drugs and alcohol he’d taken the previous night. He told him about going to the Nakamuras, and then about going to Kaiba’s once he’d made up his mind to leave.

“And he left a note on the pillow saying he was leaving me a hundred thousand yen and he expected me to be waiting for him when he got home from work. I listened to my dad call me a fag whore since I was thirteen, but I never felt like one until that moment. So, I grabbed my clothes, sold my Duel Monsters cards, and bought a plane ticket to New York. You know the rest….”

He stopped when he found himself pulled into the larger man’s shoulder. He held him in a tight hug, rocking slightly. “It’s alright, man. I was a naïve teenager, I got over it.”

“I’m being selfish,” Mario said simply. “I’m hugging you to make myself feel better, so deal with it. So, you were only with him once?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’d rather go back and face him than stay here and be blown up?”

Jou tilted his head from side to side, considering. “I can’t say for sure that he’s the lesser of two evils, but that warrant will ruin my reputation when word gets around. And if Luke knows, word has already gotten around. I’ve got to deal with it.”

“That settles it. We’re going to Japan! You’re going to deal with the warrant, and I’m going to look sexy and make this Kaiba guy miserably jealous. With any luck, Luke will hear some good news about whoever is trying to kill us, you’ll work out your issues and jump into my bed, and we’ll be back within a week.”

Mario always managed to make Jou laugh when things got too intense. “Kaiba’s got the tightest security in Japan, you’d have your work cut out for you getting within a hundred yards of him. Besides, you don’t even know where to find him or what he looks like.”

He let go of him, stood up, and straightened his suit. “About one to four inches taller than you, skinny but muscular, short brown hair and light blue eyes. He’ll have sharp features and be a bit on the melodramatic side. Right?”

“Okay, so you might have seen him on TV, but that doesn’t change the fact that Kaiba has more body guards than the Emperor.”

Mario smiled again. “I was guessing. Actually, I was describing every guy you’ve ever introduced me to, except myself, of course. Seriously, though, someone wants to see you dead, so even out of the country you’re going to be better off with someone to watch your back and I’m the only one who will not make fun of you for blushing over your high school crush. You know Esme would never let you live that down. Plus, we’ll need everyone else to keep Chantel covered. I would totally rather get shot at in Japan than take another shift with her.”

Jou stared at him for a moment, before understanding finally dawned on him. “You really hate the pop singer gig, don’t you?”

“More than you can imagine,” he said, without missing a beat.

“She’s not that bad,” Jou insisted.

“She doesn’t use you as eye candy. You just have to deal with her being spoiled rotten. I get to deal with her being spoiled rotten and clingy. Do you know how weird it is to have a fifteen year old girl grabbing my ass on the job?”

“Alright, I get it. But this won’t be a picnic,” Jou warned. “The police in Japan aren’t like they are here, and if whoever hired that guy at the concert follows me, we’ll be on our own.”

“I think we can deal with the police, and even count on their help if things go bad.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Joey, you always assume that it’s you verses the whole world, and given how you grew up, I suppose that there is a valid reason for that point of view, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Just play to their sensibilities and the police will go out of their way to help out, you’ll see.”

“Play to their sensibilities?” Jou felt the familiar dread that came whenever things were about to grow way beyond his control.

“Of course. As an upstanding member of the private security sector, you were shocked to learn that a warrant for your arrest was still on record from something in your ‘rambunctious childhood.’ It was so long ago you can’t even remember the offense, but you’re flying home at great personal expense to take full responsibility for your childhood transgressions. Cops are naturally suspicious, but they all hope the kids they pick up will turn things around. Seeing it happen is the type of thing that makes old cops turn away so no one catches them crying. It’s why a lot of them do the job in the first place.”

“You really think I can pull that off?”

“It’s the truth, Joey, there’s nothing to pull off.”

“Mario….”

“It’s close enough to the truth.”

* * * * * *

Downtown Domino felt crowded after the sprawl of Los Angeles. In terms of sheer population, Domino couldn’t compare, but the millions of people who called LA home were spread out over hundreds of miles. In Domino, like the rest of Japan, people were packed tightly everywhere. For Jou, who hadn’t been home in eight years, it felt like slipping on an old fitted coat—things were comfortably constrained. If it bothered Mario, he didn’t let it show. Despite Jou’s promise that they were safe, he was in full bodyguard mode, so he didn’t let anything show at all. Jou knew that the frantic movement of his eyes behind his sunglasses would have looked creepy with the fake smile plastered on his face. Jou was scanning the crowd for familiar faces as much as he was for threats, and occasionally acting as tour guide and translator for Mario, as they made their way to the Domino Police Department.

Jou felt stupid. He had grown up fighting on these streets, and walking down them now with an escort made him feel ridiculous. “This is dumb. Nobody wants me dead bad enough to follow me around the world to see the job done. Stop acting paranoid and start acting like a tourist, will ya?”

Mario glanced around them cautiously, then pulled off his sunglasses and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t play the tourist well.”

“By the way, I agreed to let you teach Chantel some basic self-defense when we get back to the States. The poor girl needs a bit more self-confidence after that attack, and—hey, ow!”

“Oh!” Mario jumped. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Joey! That was your foot, wasn’t it?”

Jou gritted his teeth and stamped his foot several times, trying to dull the sharp pain from where a three-hundred-pound martial artists had just stepped on it.

“I was so busy trying to think like a tourist that I completely spaced out! Are you okay?”

“That hurt.”

“I’m really sorry. I’m such a clumsy ox sometimes. Were you saying something?”

“Not a thing.”

Mario nodded, but wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Glad I didn’t miss anything, then.”

Jou led him up the broken concrete stairs into the same Police station he’d been booked in himself as a kid. Even after all these years he felt his own hands twitching at the memory of being trapped, completely immobile, in a pair of hinged handcuffs. Unlike regular handcuffs, the only position someone wearing hinged cuffs could keep their hands in was clasped together, as though in prayer. That had really bugged him at the time. Between his mixed Japanese-American heritage and all of the creepy Egyptian stuff he’d dealt with for Yugi, the only solid opinion Jou had formed about religion was that it was something that was better left to other people. And, of course, being a fourteen-year-old boy had made everything a dramatic insult in his head, including what he saw as a jab about his Christian mother. He had to really fight the urge to shove his hands in his pockets like he always had when he was a teenager.

Mario noticed his hesitation and tugged on his arm. “Remember, you’re all grown up and taking responsibility for a rambunctious childhood.”

“Right. All grown up.” Somehow that didn’t make him feel any less like terrified kid being arrested for the first time.

The front office of the police station was dead quiet. Posters about neighborhood watch programs, drug awareness programs, and a half-full signup sheet for a charity marathon decorated the walls. A long, empty desk sat opposite the front door and a locked gate was the only access to the office filled with busy desks beyond. Jou relaxed a bit as the door closed behind them. Mario pretended to look at the posters, positioning himself so that he could see Jou, the door, and street immediately outside. A few men in uniforms glanced up as they heard the door close.

Jou didn’t even have a chance to ring the bell on the counter before a woman in a corporal’s uniform hurried up to the counter with a smile. “Good morning! How may I help you today, sir?”

Jou put on his most professional smile. “Good morning Officer. This is a little bit embarrassing, but I’m afraid I am here to turn myself in.”

The officer took in his professional appearance, tailored suit, and confident baring. Her smile didn’t fade for a moment. “Do you have your parking citation with you, sir?”

“Ah,” Jou let himself blush this time. “I’m not here to pay for a parking ticket. I’m afraid you’re going to have to arrest me. I am an American, but I grew up here in Domino. I got into some trouble as a kid, and I thought I’d taken care of all of it before I left after high school, but it turns out I missed something. I’ll be glad to wait while you run a warrant check. My name is Jounouchi Katsuya.”

“I’m sure there’s been some mistake. Please give me a moment and I’ll run the search.” She bowed before stepped away from the counter.

Jou joined Mario by the posters. “Do you have any idea how weird this is?” he hissed.

Mario just smiled.

“You know they really might arrest me, right?”

“You should give me your credit card now so I can bail you out.”

“Good idea,” Jou said, handing the other man his visa card.

The card disappeared inside Mario’s breast pocket.

“Jounouchi-san,” the officer returned, looking more terrified than authoritative. “It seems there is an expired warrant for theft on your record. Because it is expired we’re not authorized to place you under arrest at this time.”

“It has been a long time. However, but the existence of the warrant will have a significant impact on my career. Is there anything that I can do about it?”

“It’s an odd request, but if you would like to address the charges I can call the city attorney on your behalf. With his authorization, we can clear the warrant. It may take some time to sort out, though.”

Jou nodded. “I would appreciate the help, and I don’t mind waiting.”

The Corporal bowed once again. “I’ll see what I can do. Would you like to sit down and have a cup of tea while you wait?”

“Thank you, but I’ll stand.”

The officer disappeared again, leaving Jou and Mario to wait at the front counter. Jou settled into the wide stance he used while he was working so he could stand still for hours without getting sore. Being a bodyguard meant standing still and staying focused for up to twelve hours at a time without getting distracted. It was the part of the job that led many bulky martial artists to start whimpering as their muscles cramped in the first shift, and led many would-be tough guys to quit because they couldn’t stop day-dreaming about action long enough to watch the people around them. Mario and Jou fit both stereotypes, and is was sheer will power that kept them both at it. It made the job hard.

Even Jou occasionally got distracted, trying to think of new ways to make his automated security systems more efficient and less obvious. Large visible camera were great for making an amateur thief think twice about breaking into a building he’d secured, but he was planning on branching out of commercial security and designing security systems for private homes—no one wanted a bulky camera box or motion sensor mounted next to their china cabinet. Jou’s most detailed professional fantasy involved all the things he could do if he ever got inside the Kaiba mansion again. He remembered the bulky camera boxes and motion sensors in Kaiba’s hallways and he’d been ignorant enough to be impressed by them at the time. His technology could make poor Kaiba’s place more secure and less tacky all in one go.

In his peripheral vision, he saw a movement by the counter. A tall man with brown hair and a shoulder holster over a heavy dress shirt stood at the counter staring at him. As if a switch flipped in the other man’s head, he moved. He was around the counter fast, moving towards Jou with a furious look in his brown eyes. Jou raised a single hand in Mario’s direction. The man turned what was going to be a sprint and tackle into a nonchalant step towards Jou, stopping only when Jou was within arm’s reach. The brunette grabbed Jou by the collar and hauled him off the ground. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Jounouchi!”

“Gee, it’s good to see you too, Honda.”

“Where the hell have you been!”

“Ah, around. New Jersey, LA, Mexico City, San Francisco. Guess I probably should have called, hu?”

“Probably should have called! We thought you were dead! Damn straight you should have called!” With that, the larger man pulled Jou into a tight hug, lifting him off the floor with ease. “I never thought I’d see you again! What happened? Not a word to anybody! Even Yugi and Shizuka! We thought you were dead Jou!” Honda paused, patting Jou’s shoulders in a friendly gesture, and then like an officer doing a pat down. Honda moved his mouth close to Jou’s ear. “Explain the harness now. I don’t want to throw your ass into the wall in front of your friend.”

“Don’t do many pat searches do you? It’s a vest, not a harness,” Jou said simply. “I’m unarmed. And Mario would probably get a kick out of seeing that.”

Honda let him go and stared at him, as though searching his eyes for something.

“I left my harness back in the states,” said Jou, scratching the back of his head.

“You’re a police officer?” Honda looked suspicious.

“No, not anymore. Never could make ends meet, so I moonlighted in security for a while. I built a name for myself in the private sector and pretty soon I was making ten times what I was as a cop.”

“Private sector? Rent-a-cops must get paid more in America than they do here….”

“More dangerous in America than here,” Jou said simply. “But I tend to work in close protection and automated security. I hire uniformed security for clients, but otherwise I kinda like not having to work in a uniform. Honda, this is Mario Delgado, he….” Jou smiled at Mario and switched back to English. “How do you want to play this? Are you my employee, co-worker, assistant, friend, or lover?”

“No blue eyes, so I assume he’s a friend and not Kaiba?”

“One of my best friends. Honda Hiroto, or Hiroto-san, I guess.”

“Your call, Joey. The only Japanese I’ve learned so far is how to order a beer and ask if someone speaks English, so I can’t blow whatever you choose.”

“Okay,” Jou shrugged. No sense in being dishonest if there wasn’t a good reason. “Mario Delgado, he’s sort of my partner. Or rather, his sister was my partner. I spent a couple years on the LAPD. Mario here is a Ju-jitsu sensai who works with me when he’s got time.”

“Ju-jitsu? Brazilian Ju-jitsu?” Honda asked in pathetic English.

Mario smiled brilliantly. “That’s right. When I was a student I was scrawny, so I had to find some way to defend myself from the bigger kids.”

“You were little?” Honda stared at the mountain of a man, gazing from toe to hair and back again.

“Yup.”

Honda looked a bit confused, but Jou could tell from the suspicious look in his eyes that his friend was just adding things to a long list that he would no doubt demand an explanation about later. “Well,” he said, returning to Japanese, “Why don’t you both come back and join me for some tea. We can catch up on old times.”

“Alright, but don’t let me forget I’ve got to clear up an old warrant, too.”

“Yeah, I know a bit about that.”

Honda held the gate open for them and let them through into the main office of the police station. He led them through several rows of desks and to a desk, secluded from the others by two cubicle walls. Documents were pinned to most of the available cubicle wall, along with a two-year-old calendar. On the desk were framed photos of most of Jou’s old friends from high school.

A picture of Yugi, Mokuba, Otogi, and Honda together at a theme park. Jou did a double take when he noticed that Mokuba’s arm was wrapped around Yugi’s waist. In the picture, Honda and Otogi stood next to each other, Honda with his arms crossed and Otogi with his arms straight at his side. Something in the way the two men were leaning and the way they looked at each other struck a familiar cord in Jou—he’d seen that same posture more than a few times in bars when two gay men were trying really hard to look straight. There was a framed snapshot of Anzu, dressed in the outfit of a Broadway chorus dancer. Looked like she finally made her dream come true, after all.

Honda got them each a cup of tea and sat down behind the desk. The nameplate said he was a detective now, and he looked the part. The brunette had finally let his hair collapse into a less noticeable style, had filled out through the shoulders, looking for all the world like every detective who ever tried to pawn Jou off on the foster care system. Honda sipped a cup of black coffee and stared at Jou for a moment. “You do have a lot of explaining to do. Why did you leave? Why didn’t you call or write to us? Do you have any idea how much money Kaiba’s spent over the last eight years trying to find you?”

Jou chuckled. “I figured the ice prick would have learned that I’m a waste of money by now.”

“So you knew we were looking for you?”

Jou shrugged. “I figured someone might. But I had to get away, had to prove that I could survive without being…. I had to prove I could survive by myself. The day my dad died, my whole world fell apart,” said Jou honestly. “I didn’t have a home, my only family didn’t want me, and, well, Kaiba drove home the point that if I stayed here in Domino the only way I’d be able to survive was on the streets or as a charity case. I caught the train to Tokyo, sold all of my cards to afford a one-way ticket to the States. I’ve always been an American citizen. I always meant to drop Yugi an email or something, but, well, I didn’t really get into computers and electronics until I went to school, and by then Yugi had stopped publishing his email address cause of fan mail. But I went to work, started Ally Solutions, and the next thing I knew it had been years and I still hadn’t found time to call anybody.”

“Ally Solutions?”

Jou dug out a business card for him.

“Automated and Monitored Security Solutions for Your Business, Licensed and Bonded Security Officers, Industry Leaders in Close Protection,” Honda read aloud.

“That’s us. Mostly, we work out of LA, some celebrities like to have bodyguards to make themselves feel more important, and we provide security for a lot of executives and foreign tour groups who want to vacation in Mexico. That’s where we got into trouble, I think. For two years now, we’ve also been doing some hostage negotiation in Mexico. The Mexican mafia has spent decades targeting businessmen and wealthy travelers, so their companies or families hire us to handle ransom negotiations and to make sure their employee or loved one gets back alive. I admit, things have gotten messy a few times, but we never had a problem once we got back into the United States—until recently.”

Jou told Honda about the attempted hit, about the investigation that followed, and about finding the arrest warrant he hadn’t known existed. “It seemed like a good time to get away for a while, and having a warrant on my record will damage my reputation if I don’t take care of it. Reputation is everything in my line of work. So what about you? I always figured you’d follow your dad into police work, but how did you and Otogi get together?”

Honda’s mouth was hanging open.

Jou waved his hand in front of Honda’s eyes. “Honda, man, you in there?”

“Same old Jounouchi. You sit there and talk about someone trying to kill you as though it’s the most normal thing in the world, then drop a question like that. After everything we helped Yugi though, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. How did you figure me and Otogi?”

“The picture. You both look like you got caught with your hands in a cookie jar or something. I assumed you had just let go of him a moment before. And what about Yugi? What’s that little guy up to these days?”

“Yug’ took over his grandpa’s shop when he passed away, he still duels in expos every now and then, and he’s a Kaiba Corp. consultant, of course. He and Mokuba have been hanging out a lot over the last year or so. It took him a while to get over losing Yami. Bakura and Malik are on retainers for Kaiba Corp, too, but I think Kaiba just didn’t want them wandering around and getting into trouble. They both play in a band at a local club, too. Otogi is still Otogi….” Honda shook his head with a smile. “Anzu is working as a real life dancer in New York. Last time I talked to her she was thinking about coming back to Domino and opening up a dance studio of her own.”

Jou nodded. He was glad to hear that Anzu had made it as a dancer. So many girls set out to become dancers, singers, or actresses only to end up doing far less savory things in order to survive. It was a cutthroat business, Jou knew. “Sounds like she must have worked hard.”

“I bet she ended up dating a casting agent or something,” said Honda. “She was never that good of a dancer.”

“Kaiba still a bastard?”

“Oh yes,” Honda said automatically. “Some things never change.” Honda set down his coffee and leaned forwards, his voice dropping to a whisper. “And some things do. Since you were in the same line of work, I’ll give you a fair warning, so you don’t end up pissing him off. Turns out Kaiba Seto was never so bad compared to Mokuba. I’m not saying this right now, but since you’re back, you need to know what’s been going on. As soon as he was old enough to defend himself, he made it very clear that he could and would destroy anyone who tried to hurt him or his brother. He’s taken over businesses and banks to bankrupt people he sees as a threat. A few of them have even been found dead after ties to the Yakuza mysteriously came to light. The rumor is that Mokuba is the one who plays with the Yakuza, and that the only favors he ever calls in are to completely ruin his enemies, starting with their reputations and ending with their lives. Some even say he earned his way in as a street fighter, if you can believe that.”

Jou really tried to keep the shock from his face. The last time he’d seen Mokuba, the boy had been thirteen. He had still had his playful long hair and a bright smile. Of course, as a kid he had tried to kill them all to help his brother, and he’d always been at Seto’s side in his quest to defeat Yugi. Mokuba was just such a nice kid that it was often easy for Jou to forget that little detail.

In the end, he could not keep a straight face after hearing that. His laughter came out more like a giggle. “Mokuba’s become a wise guy? The richest brat in Domino holding his own with Yakuza?”

“Yeah, the little bastard grew up to be a bigger bastard than his brother, and he’s got a soft spot for the underprivileged, so the local Yakuza like him. You know how things are.”

Jou did. In parts of town where the police didn’t dare travel, the Yakuza often watched out for people. They also extorted them, sure, but they liked to see themselves as defending the people on the very fringe of society. When Jou had been too little to defend himself against his dad, it was the local Yakuza who kept him safe. At five they had him running little errands in exchange for snacks and spare change—always things that kept him out of his dad’s sight and out of harm’s way. Like everybody else, his dad respected the local boss enough that he didn’t complain. His old man had even been proud of him, for a while.

“You’ve got to see Yugi while you’re here, so you’ll get a chance to see for yourself.”

“I believe you, Honda. He was always a sweet kid, but he was kind of a badass back then, too. At least, when he wasn’t being kidnapped, he was. I guess he got tired of it always being the victim. I don’t suppose you know anything about Shizuka?”

Honda shook his head. “I think she’s still in college. The last time I talked to her was a couple years ago, and then she said she was thinking about medical school. You should give her a call. It crushed her, when you disappeared.”

A familiar guilt knotted Jou’s stomach. Mario hadn’t been following the conversation, but he could read Jou well enough. He touched his arm and met his gaze. “Just asking about my kid sister, Shizuka. When our parents split, she went with our mom and I went with our dad. Our mom figured I’d grow up to be just as much of a drunk as our dad, so we didn’t really get to see each other much. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to her when I left.”

“So….” Mario’s voice took on a sharp, accusing tone. “You left her to deal with your dad’s funeral alone?”

Jou felt himself pale and the knots in his stomach tighten. “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ve felt bad about it ever since, but that doesn’t change the fact that I did it. It’s not like I could have contributed much anyway. I had enough money to my name to buy instant ramen. Funerals are expensive. I hope Shizuka didn’t go to too much trouble for the ol’ man, she didn’t have much money either.” Jou glanced at Honda and switched back to Japanese. “Dad’s funeral,” he explained. “It would have fallen on Shizuka to take care of it. I’ve always felt bad about that.”

Honda shrugged. “Kaiba dealt with it, believe it or not.”

“Joey,” Mario whispered. The other man made let his jaw drop open and made an expressive show of closing it again. Jou shut his mouth.

“Kaiba….” Jou huffed. “He’s the reason for the warrant, isn’t he?”

Honda nodded. “He came in about two weeks after the funeral and filed a report saying you stayed in his guest room the night after your dad died and that you took a hundred thousand yen from his home office before running away in the morning.”

“A hundred thousand yen?” Jou smirked, wondering why he was so surprised by the coincidence. “Right about now, I think I’d be willing to take on Mokuba just for the chance to kick Kaiba’s rich ass. I did not take that money, Honda. He offered it, but I left it there!”

Honda said nothing. A tiny part of Jou’s mind screamed that he was being hit with an old interrogation tactic—saying nothing almost always forced a would-be criminal into a full explanation, just to avoid an awkward silence.

Jou didn’t listen to that part of his brain. He dove into a full explanation of that night, before discretion could persuade him to hold his tongue. Honda just listened, nodding occasionally. When Jou finished, Honda kept staring at him, but he had a mischievous grin on his face.

“Jou,” Honda tossed his empty foam cup in the trash, “You know Kaiba’s occasionally an idiot, right?”

“His IQ is off the charts, Honda. Kaiba’s no idiot.”

‘I said occasionally. He’s a genius, but everyone has stupid moments. I’ve gotten to know him a bit more since high school. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of his stupid moments. Mokuba says that sometimes his brain just gets moving so quickly that it’s physically impossible for him to stop and think things through. I doubt that money meant what you think it did.”

Jou rubbed his eyes. How could one of his oldest friends think he’d over reacted? Honda couldn’t really be suggesting that Jou should have stayed in Domino and been Kaiba’s prostitute.

“Honda,” Jou shook his head, “I don’t want to understand what Moneybags meant. I don’t want anything to do with him. I just want to deal with the warrant, hang out with you and Yugi until things quiet down back in the states, and then go back to work. I did not take that money, but I’ll pay whatever I’ve got to in order to make those charges disappear.”

“Just think about it, Jou. Kaiba has always been able to solve his problems by throwing money at them. Your dad just died and you didn’t have anything.”

“He didn’t know my dad died. Kaiba knew what he was doing,” Jou insisted. “He had always been a manipulative asshole. He brought me down as far as he possibly could, then he left the money to rub it in. How could I have stayed here when he had turned me into the whore my father always said I was? The truth is, I couldn’t face you or Yugi after what happened. I felt so worthless I figured you would both be disgusted by me. And my dad would have come back from the dead just to kick my ass if I had taken that money. I left because I couldn’t deal with the shame of telling you all. I never wanted to see another familiar face again because I figured you’d all know what I had become just by looking at me! And now you know exactly what I am.”

When Mario sighed, Honda turned towards him. They shared a look that spoke volumes, despite the language barrier between them. He pushed himself to his feet quickly, grabbed Jou by the wrist, and dragged him out of his chair. Honda half-dragged Jou through the police station, passed rows of empty desks and uniformed officers struggling to write reports. He led them through a break room with a dozen cafeteria-style tables, then out a rear entrance and into an alleyway. The rage in Honda’s eyes was strong enough to rival Kaiba’s on a good day.

“Honda?” Jou glanced towards Mario, who had followed, but was keeping his distance. Her folded arms and stoic features told him that he had no intention of interfering, even if Honda ended up beating him to a pulp.

Jou didn’t really expect Honda to hit him. He also rationalized that if Honda hit him, he would inevitably pull the punch. He always had when they were kids. When Honda hit him in the cheek with a full-force round house punch that sent him flying into the brick wall behind him, Jou was caught a bit off guard. The sharp pain in his cheek and the back of his head where he hit the wall were nothing compared to the jolt to his broken ribs. He held his hands up in front of him while he fought to catch his breath.

“Damn it, Jou, don’t you ever talk about yourself that way again! I am sorry that Yugi and me weren’t there for you, I’m sorry Kaiba is the stupidest genius asshole on the planet, and I am sorry that your dad was a dick, but if I ever hear you call yourself worthless or a whore again I will personally shut you up! We were best friends, Jou! Yugi and I knew about the shit you dealt with at home, and in the gang, and we never thought less of you for it! You were always the noble one, even though you had every reason to be a bully and a criminal. As for what happened with Kaiba, Jou, if you wanted it than there is nothing wrong with what happened. I doubt you were thinking clearly at the time, but wanting someone you’re attracted to is not a bad thing!” Honda stopped yelling and stared at him for a moment. He unclenched his fists and seemed to deflate before Jou’s eyes. “If that’s really how you feel about yourself, I know I’m not going to be able to change your mind, but you will not say it out loud again.”

Jou had to shut his eyes to block out the pain. “I get it.”

“Good. Let’s go see about that warrant,” said Honda. He reached for Jou but froze when Jou cringed away from his touch. “Oh, come on, I didn’t hit you that hard. You might end up with a bruise, but it doesn’t look that bad.”

Jou was still having trouble taking a deep breath. Ever since he was a teenager, his ribs had always cracked easily, and they always took their time healing.

Honda looked at Mario desperately. “Broken ribs,” he explained simply. “He got shot.”

“You haven’t even had time to heal yet?”

“Sure I have,” Jou coughed. “Had about a week.”

“You let me hit him when he was hurt?” Honda snapped as he glared at Mario.

Mario stared right back.

“He’s mad because you let him hit me when you knew I was injured,” Jou translated.

“Ah. That’s unfair. I never agreed to be responsible for his actions. Besides, I smack you around all the time.”

Jou touched his cheek with gentle fingertips. “You don’t count. Esme is the one who usually manages to leave a bruise on me. Besides, you always hold back because you think I’m going to rape you or something if you go all out.”

Mario opened his mouth to argue, but closed it again and nodded.

“Ha! I knew it, you do hold back!”

He stepped closer and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m not going to try to actually hurt you, even if it’d mean there’d be a chance for sex involved.” Jou gawked at him. They had never slept together. That was, possibly, one of the most suggestive things Jou had ever heard the other man say, and Honda had caught it, too.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The awkward silence that filled the boardroom brought a sneer to Kaiba Seto’s face. The flustered face of each of the four board members who had tried to force his resignation was priceless. He had been able to sway everyone they had counted on for support, either through persuasion, bribery, or blackmail, and Kaiba Corporation would remain under his control for another five years.

“Ladies, gentlemen,” Seto moved around the room with a fluid grace, making eye contact with each of the four for just a bit longer than was comfortable for each of them. Every single one of them dropped their eyes. “Now that the formalities are out of the way, you’ll find the next item on our agenda is solidifying our R & D schedule for the coming year.”

“Kaiba-sama,” one of the treacherous four spoke up, “If we could put our personal issues aside for a moment, I sincerely feel that you are betraying Kaiba Corp’s best interests by ignoring the funding offer for the sensory immersion technology.”

“Kaiba Corp designs and produces games. The infrared projector was incorporated into the design to induce a mild sensation of warmth to make flame and light-based holographic attacks feel more realistic. I see no reason to accept funds from a foreign government so they can use my technology to char hundreds of people at a time.”

“I think char might be a bit inaccurate. Their projections said an acute burning sensation, to assist with crowd control, riots and such…. Hardly a military application at all.”

“Because their scientists, having read about the theory in an article I authored, would know so much more about the technology than I would. I’m just the man who designed, built, and extensively tested the technology and provided them with the only data they have regarding it. Feel free to take their word for it.” That actually earned a few chuckles.

Kaiba let out a slow sigh and rubbed his eyebrows, as though trying to explain something to child who probably wouldn’t understand anyway. “I’ll try to make this simple. Ladies and gentlemen, under my guidance, Kaiba Corp has become the most profitable game and entertainment company in the world. Under the guidance of my dear stepfather, Kaiba Corp was a mediocre arms manufacturer at best. Right now, our annual profit margin is higher than the operating budget of the government that wants to help us with funding. I think it would be foolish to give up the position we’ve reached just to go back to only making a profit when there’s a war to be fought. Wars are unpredictable, and are going to be fought more in public opinion forums on the internet than with the weapons my stepfather designed. The one thing you can always count on, though, is that there are always going to be more kids in the world. If anyone here really wants to dedicate their lives to a different market, I suggest they look into joining the board of directors of a different company.”

“Hang on to your stock options, though. You wouldn’t want to wind up without any reliable income when your new venture goes bankrupt,” said Mokuba, with a boyish grin. “The economy is so fragile, after all, it’s easier than ever to wind up without a single yen to your name if you’re not careful.”

The four members of the board who had tried to overthrow Kaiba stiffened. In the two years since Kaiba Mokuba had finished his business degree and showed up in the vice president’s seat next to his brother, they had learned that the youngest Kaiba brother was not someone they wanted to turn into an enemy. The younger Kaiba was seldom willing to negotiate or be diplomatic—he was much more likely to buy the bank that held your mortgage and raise the interest rates to such an extreme level that anyone who defied him found themselves homeless, if not entirely bankrupt. In all fairness, he had only actually done so once, but that once was enough to lend his thinly veiled threats an edge. And everyone knew he was fiercely protective of his older brother.

There were rumors, although they were seldom even whispered aloud, that the youngest Kaiba would go far beyond financial ruin to destroy his brother’s enemies. Few people wanted to test that particular theory.

“Kaiba-sama,” a neutral voice spoke up. The woman was older, but still had a razor edge that Seto had always thought made her fun to work with. “Since we’ve already deviated from the agenda, I was hoping you could address an accounting oversight that was brought to my attention….”

“Accounting oversight?”

“I presume it’s an oversight. The poor man who brought it to my attention said he had attempted to talk to you about it, but was told that you were too busy and that he had no authority to question where you spent our money. Apparently, four million dollars had been ear marked for a special project by your office about three and half years ago. The money had been withdrawn in small increments, with receipts from various agencies, until recently. Approximately three million American dollars—I know, hardly worth the concern—was deducted, by your office, with nothing to account for where the funds were spent. Since this board does have the authority to question where you spend our money, I am now asking you to address this issue.”

One of the four who had rallied against him was scribbling notes frantically.

Seto reviewed various meetings in his memory but could not remember hearing of anything odd from the Accounting Department. It took him longer to recall all of the memos and reports that he had read within the past month, but nothing had been reported about missing millions of dollars. He would remember missing millions of dollars.

“Nakamura-san,” he said with a smooth smile, “I am afraid that this is the first I have heard of this oversight. My secretary does try to address minor staff concerns without my assistance, but she may have been over-zealous in this case. If you could provide some information about the transaction, I promise you that I will find the problem and resolve it promptly.”

“Thank you,” the woman inclined her head in a gentile bow. Seto returned the gesture automatically. He caught the way her eyes flickered to the man taking notes, though. She was not exactly providing ammunition to his enemies, Seto knew. She was just making sure that he knew how much was riding on his promise to investigate.

“Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, the design schedule for the coming year….”

After the meeting, Kaiba collected a small sheet of paper with names, dates, and transaction numbers from the older woman and promised, once again, to let her know as soon as he has sorted out where the money went. Kaiba stayed still, smiling as she left, until the door shut and latched behind her.

“Well, that could have gone better,” said Mokuba, tilting his chair back and letting himself slouch low in the seat.

Seto shrugged. “There have been closer votes before. So long as I can come up with two hit videogames and a new release of Duel Monsters in the next five years, I’m fine. I think you’ve made a few new enemies, though.”

Mokuba gave Seto his impish grin, the one that always got him ice cream when he was a little boy. “I haven’t even begun to make enemies here, Seto. You always said that anything worth doing is worth doing well. Give me time and you’ll see that I intend to make enemies like a craftsman.”

“So you’ve said,” Seto leaned against the window and stared out over the city of Domino. “I just wish you could give me a better explanation.”

“Easy,” said Mokuba. “I want you to keep your job. If they see you as the lesser of two evils, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“With you being the greater evil?”

“Yes.”

Seto nodded with a grin. He shouldn’t be proud of his brother for growing into a more bloodthirsty businessman that him, but he was. “Well, I feel like celebrating, want to go get a pizza?”

“Can I invite a couple of friends?”

“I assumed Yugi was coming. Who’s the other one? Please not another potential girlfriend. It’s not that Naomi girl again, is it?”

Mokuba shook his head. “No, she said no amount of money could make putting up with you worthwhile.”

“Charming.” Seto sighed. “So who is it? Not Shizuka again,” Seto insisted, “I don’t know why you and Yugi keep trying to set me up with her, but that’s just too weird.”

Mokuba couldn’t meet Seto’s gaze. “Well, she looks a lot like Jou, so we just figured…. But no, I’m done trying to set you up with girls.”

“Finally!”

“So I asked Yugi if he knew any guys you might be interested in.”

“You what?”

“Don’t worry, I told him to be discrete about it.”

Seto’s eyes narrowed. “Can we just agree that you won’t meddle in my personal life and go have pizza?”

“What personal life?” Mokuba huffed.

As they headed for Seto’s personal elevator, his secretary raced to catch up to them. “Kaiba-sama, here are your messages from this morning.”

“Thank you, Kaede-san.” He took the small stack of paper and carefully flipped through them.

His secretary twirled her hair as she walked beside him. “I’ve updated your afternoon schedule on your blackberry, confirmed your attendance at the museum fundraiser with Miss Ishtar, you’ll need a date, and I’ll have the minutes of the board meeting transcribed by tomorrow morning.”

“I am not bringing a date. Get a dress and show up. In addition, I’d like the sketches and storyboards for the new RPG, they should be done by now. I want to leak some screen shots to start building up hype for the November release. Also,” he handed her the sheet of paper from the board meeting, “Look into this transaction. I would like a complete report regarding it by Tuesday morning.”

“I’ll see to it, Kaiba-sama. Enjoy your lunch.”

When the elevator door closed, Mokuba glanced sideways at him. “She’s crazy about you, you know.”

“I know. I’ve done nothing to encourage it. Unfortunately, trying to find a secretary who’s not obsessed with me has proven to be more trouble than it’s worth.”

“You could hire a man.”

“No.” Seto tried to fight down the blush as he remembered how complicated things had gotten the last time he’d hired a male secretary. He had ended up with a secretary who hit on him all the time with the added curse of actually being attracted to the man. That had blown up into a personal and public relations catastrophe, and it had taken a lot of money and the threat of a legal action to keep all of the details of his sex life from ending up in a first-hand tabloid interview. It had not been one of his better moments. After that fell apart, Seto had decided he was better off with adoring female secretaries who assumed he was too noble to pursue them.

Kaede had always been professional, but lately she was hitting on him a bit more insistently than she had when he’d first hired her. Seto had not been forced to deal with a single administrative nightmare in the entire four years she had been working for him. She had even persuaded him, once she had learned about his obsession with tracking down Jounouchi, that it was time to stop paying the private investigators their monthly stipend for never finding any trace of the Mutt. He was lucky to have found her.

“At least you weren’t such as ass the last time you had a male secretary.”

An hour later, Seto was sipping a beer and watching Yugi beat Mokuba at an electronic chess game. It had taken three years of watching Mokuba and Yugi sneak around before Seto had finally given in and told Mokuba he didn’t care who he shared his bed with. Since then the smaller man had been a permanent fixture in his life, no matter how much he hated the idea. Once that annoying Mizaki girl had gone off to school in America, Yugi’s friendship speeches had mellowed and eventually disappeared altogether. Seto didn’t know if he’d just given up or if he somehow saw Seto’s willingness to put up with him as another victory. But Mokuba was happy, and that had always been the only thing that mattered.

Seto’s business phone rang and he answered it automatically. “Kaiba.” Seto listened for a moment, then dropped the phone as the color drained from his cheeks. He felt like his brain shut down completely when the prosecutor said the one name that had been his obsession for nearly ten years.

After Jou had vanished, Seto had spared no expense trying to find him. Because Jou’s own mother wasn’t concerned about him vanishing, the police hadn’t taken Seto’s attempt to file a missing person’s report seriously. He’d hired every private investigator in Japan and spent weeks driving through seedy neighborhoods from Domoino to Tokyo looking for the lost Mutt. In retrospect, he might have got a bit carried away with the theft report. Seto thought if the police would just actually look for Jou that they would have more luck than the private investigators. Since the police wouldn’t look for Jou as a missing person, he figured they might look for him as a criminal. He had been wrong about that. When Jou decided to vanish, he was thorough about it, disappearing so completely that it was as though there was no record of Jounouchi Katsuya existing beyond their small high school and his ranked duels.

He picked up his phone as fast as he could. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that? He just showed up and offered to repay the money?” Despite years of careful training by Gozoboro in maintaining composure under pressure, Seto couldn’t help squeezing his eyes shut and hitting his forehead against the table. Jou finally came back to Domino only to find that Seto had proclaimed, to the whole world, that he was a miserable thief. He’d have to move quickly to have any chance of talking with the Mutt. And unless Jou had mellowed with age, he’d probably want to beat the shit out of him rather than talk.

He motioned for Mokuba’s attention frantically. “Yes, I’m aware that the statute of limitations has expired. I…. No, I intend to forgive the debt, but I would like to tell him that personally. Thank you for letting me know.” He set a wad of money down on the table and grabbed his brother by the wrist, pulling him towards the door and calling his driver. “Hurry up, both of you! We have to go right now!” He threw his brother into the limo and let his brother’s boyfriend crawl in behind him.

He called his secretary as soon as they were moving. “Kaede, it’s Kiaba. I want my schedule cleared for this afternoon and tomorrow.”

“Kaiba-sama, what’s happened?”

“The police have found Jounouchi Katsuya. I have to find him, have to apologize while I have the chance.”

“Jounouchi Katsuya is alive? And in Domino? Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. I’ll reschedule your appointments and inform the staff that you’ll be out of the office tomorrow. If you need more time cleared this week just let me know.”

“Go ahead and clear the entire week. Post everything I requested on the server, I’ll work from home,” said Seto, disconnecting without another word.

Across from him, Yugi and Mokuba were staring at him with open mouths.

“Is it true, Seto?” Yugi asked, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “Jou is back?” Yugi was the only one of Jou’s friends who had not assumed he was dead. He alone had never lost faith in Jou returning.

“I don’t know. Someone showed up at the Domino Police station claiming to be Jounouchi Katsuya. I assumed you would want to come along, in case it’s him?”

“Definitely! It would be so exciting if Jou were finally home!”

Seto would be excited just to find out if Jou was alive.

He didn’t expect his heart to be racing. The familiar streets of Domino passed by outside the limo window quickly, but the short drive seemed to be stretching on for an eternity. He tried to make the time go faster by scripting out possible scenarios in his head. He was not counting on Jou being willing to speak with him. He had given up on that fantasy years ago, letting his hopes whittle away to illogical possibility that the Mutt was still alive somewhere.

It had taken nearly a week after Jou disappeared before Seto even realized what he’d done wrong. Seto had only spent a grand total of six months in the orphanage as a boy, and during that time, he was only exposed to the difficulties of poverty among the very young.

Logically, he knew that he and Jou came from very different worlds, but it took a week of sitting on the steps outside of Jou’s apartment for Seto to get a feel for just how different. He hadn’t moved for days, having his driver bring him take out, when one of Jou’s neighbors finally sat down and spoke to him. She had been an older lady with a small tabby cat who rode around on her shoulder. She explained to Seto that Jou was more at home out of the streets than he had ever been in his father’s apartment. Then she told him stories of the times Jou had shown up at her door with cuts, bruises, or broken bones and begged her to hide him for a few days. She was the one who told him that Jounouchi’s interest in him had been genuine and not just a fluke born out of grief. When he told her about the night he and Jou and spent together, how he had left a note apologizing for taking advantage of him and left money to help with the expenses Jou was going to face, she had slapped him hard enough to leave a pink hand print on his cheek. When he still looked confused, she had been kind enough to explain what the gesture would have meant from Jou’s perspective.

Seto had increased his efforts to find Jou after that. He hired a private investigator to watch the apartment, hired more investigators to search for the Mutt, and tried to file a missing person report. As weeks passed without any sign of Jou, he cut back on the private investigators and hired three who had the best reputations when it came to locating missing people. He told them that he didn’t care how long it took, or how much it cost, he wanted them to find Jounouchi. After weeks turned into months, and then months blurred together, even the private investigators had all but given up. At the one-year mark, they all agreed that the Mutt had either completely changed his identity or was in an anonymous grave somewhere.

Little by little, he had given up. The sharp edge of the guilt that ate away at him was hard to endure. For a long time, he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he had driven Jou away when the Mutt was an emotional wreck and had nowhere in the world to call home. Jou had only just graduated from high school and Seto knew he didn’t have a job yet. Since Jou had spent his share of time on the streets as a kid, it was only logical that he’d go back to the streets when he ran out of other options. The best private investigators in Japan agreed he had probably died on the streets. Before he returned home from work and found that Jou was gone, Seto had hoped that Jou might have realized Seto wanted to give him another option—even if it wasn’t with him. Instead, a miscommunication left him responsible for driving Jou away, maybe to his doom.

Seto leaned on his window, watching the door of the police station as soon as it came into view. Unless the Mutt had already gotten away, Seto would at least be able to spot him if he decided to make a run for it. When the limo finally stopped, Seto leapt out with Yugi on his heels. Mokuba told the driver to stay nearby and followed behind them at a leisurely pace.

Seto froze inside the door, scanning the room for any sign of Jou’s familiar hair. Finding no one, he straightened up and strode to the counter. When the officers working at their desks noticed him, one went running, presumably to find someone in charge. A moment later an older gentleman in a three-piece suit hurried toward the counter, bowing as he came. “Kaiba-san,” the man bowed low once he stopped, “How may we be of service?”

“I was just notified by the city prosecutor that a Jounouchi Katsuya was here. He has been missing for some time, and as it happened, I was having lunch with my brother and one of Jounouchi-san’s oldest friends when I was told that he was at the police station. We came at once, so that my associate might be able to catch up with his friend before he loses track of him altogether.”

“Ah, yes, of course! Jounouchi-san and his American friend are in our gymnasium. I’ve just come from watching them, actually. Please,” the man lifted the gate for them, “Come this way.”

The man in the suit led them through the office and through a small wooden side door. Inside was an old gymnasium with blue mats covering most of the floor. The room was filled with police officers, some in uniform, some in shorts and t-shirts, and others in suits, and all standing in a circle, staring at a grappling match in stunned silence. Somewhere in the tangle of limbs, one of the grapplers was breathing very hard. The other wasn’t even winded. Seto found himself staring, too, wondering how such a gigantic man could move so easily. Seto did a double take when he realized that the man the giant was fighting was Honda. Honda was no weakling, having spent years training in judo and karate as a boy, and years more teaching and studying defensive tactics as an officer. In one swift motion, the giant sent him flying. In an instant, Honda was face down on the gym floor, his legs locked under the other man’s, his upper body completely immobilized by a carefully balanced joint lock.

Mokuba froze beside Seto. His brother stared at the scene and folded his arms in concentration.

“He won’t tap out,” came a familiar voice, although it spoke English and not Japanese. Seto searched for the source of the voice and found Jou standing in the first ring of spectators, wearing an expensive, although poorly tailored suit. His suit jacket was draped over his shoulder and his shirt clung to him awkwardly. The fit body that Seto spent so long drooling over looked more defined than he remembered, although an odd angle at each of Jou’s shoulders made him look like he had shoulder pads on under his dress shirt. His messy blond hair now looked professionally styled, and even though blond stubble decorated his chin, he still had the same infectious smile.

Seto resisted the urge to move towards him, to touch him and make sure he was real. He just watched, trying to memorize every detail of Jou’s golden smile before Jou noticed he was there.

“He won’t give in,” Jou said again, a chuckle in his voice.

“Joey, stop trying to help your friend by distracting me. You’re wasting your breath.”

Joey? Seto glanced between Jou and the man balanced on top of Honda. Jounouchi had changed his name, and had obviously gone to America. He looked like he was successful, whatever he’d ended up doing. Seto was glad that Jou had returned to Domino as a success, but he felt his stomach sink as he realized that Jou had also returned home with a man who had the body, face, and hair of an action movie star.

“I’m just saying…. You could sit there all day and he won’t give in—not the Honda Hiroto I know.”

“Ironically,” said the man, “I’m perfectly capable of sitting here all day. But I’m already getting bored. Let’s see if this made it across the professional channels.”

The man rotated Honda’s arm so his upper arm was against his ear, then moved in a flash, wrapping his arms around both Honda’s neck and his arm and squeezing fairly hard. In a matter of seconds, Honda’s clenched eyes fell shut and his body went limp.

Around them, the cops in the room let out a series of groans and curses.

“Will he be alright?” asked a female officer whose conversational English was far better than Honda’s.

“He should be fine,” said the man softly. “I’m applying pressure, and counter pressure, to the carotid artery. The counter pressure is provided by the arm bar, makes it effective with less force. The idea is to pause the blood flow just long enough to knock him out, but he’ll be awake again in a few seconds,” he explained in the patient voice of a practiced instructor. He still wasn’t even breathing hard.

The man maintained the hold for another few seconds, then released Honda and gracefully rose to his feet. He gently turned Honda over on to his back, checked his pulse and physically pushed him into a sitting position. With one hand holding him steady, he raised the other and slapped him on the back hard enough that the sound echoed through the gym. Honda’s head shot up as though someone had just poured water on him. He took a few deep breaths and brought both hands to his head.

“LAPD banned that little trick,” Jou muttered.

The man, who was dressed in a tight pair of slacks and a skin-tight white undershirt, was easily one of the most attractive men Seto had ever seen. He had deeply tanned skin, glittering dark hair, and the toned body of a professional athlete. When he smiled at Jou, Seto swore he could actually hear sighs from the female officers in the room.

“They did. The sheer number of officers working in LA mean they’ll have some idiot would-be heros who use the technique incorrectly or abusively. If you hold the choke too long, or if your positioning is wrong, people die. There are over ninety thousand officers working in LA. About eight people died, over a fifteen year period. Honestly, it was statistically impressive given the risk, but it was still a public relations nightmare.” He smirked. “Glad it’s not my problem.”

“You didn’t think about using something a bit safer?” Jou asked, though his voice was calm.

“No,” the giant said simply. “The alternative was pain compliance or a submission technique. If his ego can’t survive tapping out when he’s pinned, how horrible would it be to make him squeal?”

Jou shook his head.

The man knelt down beside Honda and checked on him again. With a friendly grin, he offered him a hand. Honda took it and accepted the help getting to his feet, rubbing his neck all the while. He was the first to notice that Seto, Mokuba, and Yugi had arrived. “Yugi, Mokuba, Kaiba, nice to see you again.”

Jou froze, his entire body tensing to run away or attack someone. The man who had been fighting with Honda strolled over to Jou, letting his hips sway slightly as he walked. He placed a massive hand on Jou’s shoulder and whispered something in his ear in a language Seto didn’t recognize. Jou’s whole body relaxed.

Seto refused to let himself feel anything at the sight of the man holding on to Jou’s shoulder. He and Jou had never had a relationship, never even a real friendship, and eight years had passed since he’d last seen the man. It was completely irrational for him to feel jealous. So, he reasoned, he just wouldn’t let himself feel jealous. Jou turned towards them looking just as hot as he did in high school and Seto had to ball his hands into fists to remember that he was a completely rational person.

“Yugi! Mokuba! I was hoping I’d get to run into you! Kaiba,” Jou nodded in Seto’s direction, locking eyes with him for a single moment, then turned back to the circle of police officers. “Please excuse us.”

When Jou turned back he focused his eyes on Yugi and wouldn’t meet Seto’s gaze. “How you doin’, Yug’?”

“Jou!” Yugi was so excited he was bouncing. “Jou, it’s really you!”

“It’s me. Mario, these are the friends I told you about, Motou Yugi and Kaiba Mokuba. Guys, this is Mario.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Yugi, shaking his free hand.

“Likewise. Joey talks about you so much that I feel like I’ve known you for years,” he lied. “Please forgive the lecture a few moments ago, teaching is my passion and I got a bit carried away.”

“Not at all, it was very interesting. We saw a portion of the fight. Honda-kun is no easy opponent, either,” said Yugi, beaming. “That was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen! Are you a police officer, too? Where did you learn all that?”

“I’m not a police officer,” Mario’s eyes flickered in Seto’s direction. “Just a humble teacher. Although my sister was Joey’s partner, when he was an officer.”

Seto watched Jou open his mouth, then shut it again quickly.

“What?” the giant smiled at Jou.

“Training officer. I didn’t stay long enough to be assigned an actual partner. She taught me the ropes, though.”

“So you were a police officer, Jou? Wow,” Yugi looked at Jou a bit uncertainly, “I can’t believe you’re standing right here. We have to hang out and get caught up! We should call everyone and get the whole gang together!”

“Easy, Yugi,” Jou patted him on the shoulder, “I’d love to, but there’s something I’ve got to clear up here first. I can’t leave the police station until the prosecutor decides to clear an old warrant for my arrest, and I think I owe Kaiba some money before that’ll happen.” Jou pulled out his wallet and checkbook. “It was a hundred thousand yen, wasn’t it, Kaiba? Do you know the current exchange rate? All my accounts are held by American banks.”

Seto’s mouth was so dry he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to speak. He was torn between wanting to throw up and jump the blond right there. He was Seto Kaiba, he told himself. He did not lose control of himself, he did not give in to base emotions, and he was never at a loss for words.

He swallowed and smiled at Jou. “This is a first for me, Jounouchi. I owe you an apology. I am more sorry than you can possibly imagine. The theft report was a misunderstanding, and one that I forgot to clarify until the city prosecutor called me a few minutes ago. I came as soon as I could so that I could apologize in person. I hoped you might be willing to talk to me about it, and to forgive me.” Seto sank to his knees and leaned forward until his brow touched the gym floor.

“Seto!” Mokuba hissed, obviously embarrassed.

Seto watched the blond as he stood up. The look of open-mouthed shock on Jou’s face was worth humbling himself a little, he decided.

“Joey,” Mario leaned down towards Jou’s ear again. Again he whispered something in Spanish, and Jou responded in the same language, chuckling and shaking his head.

Jou sighed and finally met Seto’s eyes. The uncertainty, pain, and guilt Seto was hiding inside himself was reflected in Jou’s gaze. But Jou’s eyes still had the same fire they always had, the same life, and the same smoldering invitation that had been the subject of so many of Seto’s wet dreams when he was a teenager. Seto smirked when he realized that look wasn’t in Jou’s eyes when he looked at the man hanging off of him. Whoever he was, he and Jou were definitely not together. The fact that Jou was willing to use a handsome friend to try and make Seto jealous was promising, as far as Seto was concerned. 

“You don’t mind?” Jou whispered.

“Nah,” the man looked serious for the first time, “I think you’ll be just fine on your own. Besides, I’ve got a sparring partners, a five star hotel to go home to, and your credit card to order room service. What more do I need?”

“Just remember to keep the room service charges reasonable, right?”

“No promises. If I get bored I might go online and order you a replacement for that undershirt you’re wearing. It’s full of holes, if I recall.”

Jou nodded and appeared lost in thought. “I left my spare at home, didn’t I?”

The man shrugged, let go of Jou’s shoulder, nodded to Yugi, and returned to the growing circle of law enforcement martial experts waiting for him.

Jou stood in front of Seto like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Seto held his gaze, refusing to look away. He knew the Mutt’s pride would never let him back down and look away first, so he kept his eyes locked on Jou’s, hoping the other man could still read him as easily as he had when they were younger. If the blush rising on Jou’s cheeks was any indication, Jou still didn’t have any trouble guessing what was on Seto’s mind.

“Why don’t we all go have a drink,” Mokuba interrupted their silent conversation. “You and Jou obviously need to clear the air and it will give us a chance to organize a party to welcome Jou home properly. Honda, can you join us?”

“Yeah, I can take a break. Coffee for me, of course.”

“Mokuba, you don’t need to go to any trouble. I’d love to go get a drink with ya, but I’m not really up for a party. I get jumpy around a lot of people these days.”

“Let’s go, then,” Yugi took Jou by the shoulder and retraced their steps through the maze of desks with Seto, Mokuba, and Honda following close behind.

“How about a dinner, then? If you say you’re not up for food, then you’re not the real Jounouchi.”

“Ha! I wish! My metabolism ain’t what it was when I was seventeen. I gotta watch my girlish figure, now.” Jou rubbed his hand over his abs.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about there,” Seto muttered. Jou cast a glare his way but Seto kept his features as blank as he could manage. Jou tried to pretend he didn’t hear the comment, but he pretending so hard that he ended up tripping over his own feet.

Jou turned and began chatting with Yugi, falling into the same easy pattern they had always had. Honda walked beside Seto, discretely trying to get his attention. “Yes?” Seto said at last.

“You actually going to make things right, or are you just fucking around?” asked Honda in a whisper.

“I’m going to apologize,” Seto whispered, without looking at Honda. “Fucking around might also be involved, but that’s up to Jou.”

“Don’t count on it. You saw the boy toy he brought home. Even you can’t compete with that ass.”

When they reached the front counter, Honda held the gate to the office open as they all filed out. The tinkle of broken glass made Seto look up just in time to see Jounouchi diving towards him. Seto tried to brace himself as Jou tackled him, but the Mutt efficiently swept his feet out from under him, sending them both to the floor. Seto clenched his teeth, certain his head was going to hit the ground hard, but instead his head bounced off of something soft. The sound of breaking glass came two more times, followed by the screech of tires and the revving of a car engine.

It took a moment for Seto to realize that the soft thing his head landed on was Jou’s arm. The Mutt had wrapped both his arms around Seto’s head and was hovering over his body, but he wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at the door they had nearly walked through. Seto followed his gaze. Three holes were in the glass door at about chest height. Around them, the police department was erupting with frantic activity. Honda ran past them and out the door. He held his pistol ready, shouting orders at a half dozen officers who were trailing behind him.

“What just happened?” Seto stared at the door, then at Jou.

“Are you hit?” Jou asked, trying to look over Seto’s body without moving. “Are you injured?”

“I’m fine,” said Seto, pushing Jou off him. “Mokuba!”

Mokuba held Yugi to the floor, glaring at the door as though he was trying to will it to burst into flames.

“Mokuba, are you alright?” Seto demanded.

“Yes. The second and third shots are in the counter,” he said in a bored voice.

“Second and third?”

Mokuba shot a glance towards Jou. Seto turned and checked on the smaller man. He was on his feet, talking rapidly with the old captain, but a dark streak of blood had formed on the Jou’s left sleeve. His arm was still moving, so it was presumably not broken.

Seto listened to Jou’s conversation for a moment, assembling the basic facts quickly, then pulled out his phone. Within minutes, his own security was en route and Seto’s private doctor agreed to meet them at the Domino hospital. The man Jou had introduced as Mario appeared by Jou’s side dressed in one of the tightest suits Seto had ever seen, but with a shoulder harness and handgun peeking out from beneath his jacket. While the rest of the room was acting frantic, he was standing still, his eyes darting between Jou and the street outside. He recognized the posture and the baring. Seto had spent most of his life standing next to men who mastered that exact pose and expression.

“He’s a bodyguard,” Seto said aloud, torn between being surprised and amused by Jou’s choice for protection.

“What?” Mokuba asked. He was in the middle of helping Yugi to his feet.

“Nothing,” said Seto. He strode towards Jou and Mario, determined to restore some semblance of order to the chaos. “Mario, was it?” Seto asked in English.

He nodded but didn’t look at him.

“My security is on the way. They will be transporting all of us to a secure location where Jou can receive medical attention. You’ll need a radio and vest to work with them effectively, would you prefer I have them loan you the gear, or outfit you once Jou is secure?”

Seto was impressed when the man paled but didn’t stop scanning the street. “We have enough equipment to deal with the situation ourselves. And I don’t think Joey would be comfortable accepting anything from you—whether it’s help or money.”

He didn’t mean to flinch. He really didn’t. The idea that Jou had told his bodyguard about Seto’s mistake made him angrier than he had any right to be. “He told you? So you’re more than his bodyguard?”

“I am not his bodyguard,” the large man insisted.

“I am Kaiba Seto,” Seto said harshly. “I do not explain myself to anyone. Since you seem to care about him, I will tell you that I intended to pursue a real relationship with him. I admit, I made a mistake not making my intentions clear all those years ago, but I think this is slightly more important than that. Jou has no choice. My home is the most secure location in the city, I employ enough security officers to staff a rather formidable army, and I can arrange for on-site medical care. He needs to see a doctor. I was inviting you to work with my staff on this, but if you’re not willing to cooperate, I’ll have them see to matters themselves.”

Mario turned slightly. “Gay Billionaire Kidnaps High School Crush…?” he said, just loud enough for Seto to hear. “It would be one hell of a headline, don’t you think?”

“That’s going a bit far. After all, you’ll be working directly with my staff to insure that no one molests Jou while he’s in my home. Unless he wants to be molested, of course. He needs to see a doctor, either way.”

Mario kept the glare up for another moment, then nodded. “Agreed. Joey, we’re relocating once Kaiba’s security gets here.”

“What? No, we are not! There’s no chance in hell I’m leaving here with Kaiba!”

“Get over it, Joey, you’re going. You said it yourself, he’s got tighter security than the Emperor,” Mario reminded him.

Seto’s security stormed into the station like a swat team. They had scanners in their cars, and Seto was confident that his security chief would have heard about the shooting, and the pursuit that was no doubt under way, on the radio. Seto barked an order at them and they quickly surrounded Seto, Mokuba, Yugi, and Jou.

Three minutes later a dozen men were struggling to surround Jou and Seto, and still fit through the police department door at the same time.

Jou was not helping matters. “Let go of me, you bastards! I don’t need your friggin’ help!” Side kicks sent two of Seto’s security flying, a knee to the groin from Jou sent another to the ground in a fetal position. “I would rather get shot through the head than go with that prick! Let me go!” Despite the injury to his left arm, Jou still managed to punch two more men and elbow one in the temple. He got a hold of another’s arm and broke it with an efficient snap. Seto was surprised he could hear the crack over the din.

“Joey, I’m officially disappointed in you….” Jou’s protests died on his lips when a skilled hand grabbed his uninjured arm and squeezed into a pressure point. Jou dropped to his knees screaming. Keeping his grip on Jou’s pressure point, Mario hoisted him in one arm and dragged him toward the limo, tripped him as he got close to the door, and shoved him into the car head-first. “I apologize in advance for Joey, you seem to bring out the worst in him,” Mario told Seto, then physically shoved him into the limo too, “And he’s going to bleed all over your car.”

Mokuba and Yugi followed without any protest. Inside the limo the four of them were seated on the center of the seats, with a bodyguard by each door. Seto explained Mario’s presence to Roland, his own security chief.

“Roland,” he said, extending a hand.

“Delgado,” he replied, taking a radio and ear piece offered by another guard.

“Delgado? Not Mario Delgado? Of Ally Solutions?”

“The one and only.”

“It’s a pleasure to have you on the team. We hired Ally deal with a few mishaps our people have had abroad. You’ve got a hell of a reputation. You and your boss. After hearing about that Guadalajara thing, and then that rescue in Cabo, I was really eager to meet Joey Wheeler myself, but I never get to the States these days.”

“You’ve heard of Joey Wheeler?” Mario looked a bit surprised.

“It pays to keep up with the field, and Mr. Wheeler is certainly the leader of the field at the moment. I wish we could call on him, too, he’s got a reputation for being able to manage difficult clients.” Roland smirked towards Jounouchi. “This one was always a handful, though. If I’d known Jounouchi was involved, I would have been better prepared. The first time we had to deal with him he was only sixteen and he still insisted on taking me on personally.”

“You might be disappointed if you get to meet Joey Wheeler,” Mario glared at Jou. “Joey Wheeler is not as professional as his reputation makes him out to be.”

“Traitor,” Jou hissed. He sulked in the corner with his arms folded across his chest.

“Sir, this is a lucky break,” Roland turned to Seto. “Ally Solutions can handle anything from securing a bank to protecting the Pope—hostile environments and paramilitary recovery is their specialty.”

“I wouldn’t call it lucky,” Seto said with a nonchalant smile. “Joey Wheeler just took out six of your men.”

Roland’s mouth dropped open as he looked at Jounouchi. “But that’s Jounouchi Katsuya, Mr. Kaiba. Joey Wheeler is an American, and he’s a professional. We wouldn’t have been able to get Joey Wheeler in this car if he didn’t want to be in it.”

“You didn’t get Joey Wheeler in this car,” Seto pointed out. “Mr. Delgado did.”

“He’s right,” Jou muttered. “I was born Joseph Wheeler. I just went by Jounouchi Katsuya here because my dad didn’t want me to feel like an outsider in school. How’d you figure it out?”

“Genius,” said Seto, as though no other explanation could possibly be needed.

Seto was mentally taking notes, and despite being shot at ten minutes before, he was having a lot of fun watching Jou be pushed around by his own bodyguard. Despite his initial urge to crush the other man, he was starting to like him a bit. Seto had been paying attention to their conversations. He had heard Mario refer to Jou as Joey several times. The private investigators had been looking for Jounouchi by name and by general description, but they had been searching arrest records and trying to get information out of street gangs—they had never bothered to search for a reputable businessmen. Seto was angry with himself for assuming the Mutt would never amount to anything. No one else, including the Mutt’s closest friends, assumed he would make anything of himself either, though.

“I see.” Roland pulled more equipment out of various pockets inside his suit. “Mr. Wheeler, sir,” he said politely, “I apologize for the misunderstanding back there. I’d have likely done the same. How bad is your arm?”

Jou relaxed a little, despite still looking angry. Seto watched as Jou’s eyes dropped to his own arm, as if he was becoming aware of the injury for the first time. “It’s just a scratch,” he said simply.

“That’s a lot of blood for a scratch, sir. On both sides of your sleeve.”

Jou bit his lip and looked gently pulled at his sleeve. “Hu….”

Seto moved into the seat beside Jou. “Are you saying you didn’t even notice you were injured?” He grabbed the sleeve and shoulder and pulled the shirt apart at the seam. He gently worked the sleeve down until he found a deep wound where a bullet cut through the top layer of skin. It wasn’t bad, but there was a lot of blood. More blood than there should have been, really. “There’s not actually much damage, but it’s going to hurt once the shock wears off. We should get you to a hospital before we go back to the manor.”

“I just got out of the hospital. I’m sick of hospitals,” Jou whined. “Mario can stitch it up. And I’m still taking the other pain meds, so I can’t get more anyway.”

“Other pain meds?” Seto couldn’t keep the concern out of his voice. Jou motioned towards his coat. Seto dug through the pockets until he found two small prescription bottles. “These are a narcotic, Jou. And an anti-inflammatory drug that’s also a blood thinner. They’re strong. Are you on them now?”

Jou nodded, then let his head fall back onto the seat. He looked pale and exhausted. “Took them about half an hour ago.”

“Well, that means your arm won’t hurt worse for another four to six hours,” Seto corrected himself. “You’re still bleeding excessively.”

“Blood thinner…. Didn’t think about that.”

Seto rolled his eyes. Judging from Jou’s voice, he was getting weaker by the minute. The adrenaline was wearing off, Seto realized. Worse, the Mutt was sweating and was cold to the touch. Seto was not a doctor by any means, but he did have an excellent memory, good enough to remember the symptoms of shock. “Tell the driver to take us to the emergency room, now. Mokuba, call my doctor and tell him he’s to meet us there instead.”

“Don’t want your help.,” Jou mumbled.

“You need my help, Mutt! Your blood isn’t clotting properly. You are in shock and you are not thinking clearly, so this time I’m not giving you a choice. You can bitch about it later.”

Jou’s eyes swiveled. Seto touched his cheek with gentle fingertips, his touch ghosting over the bruise that was forming on Jou’s cheek. “Why were you on the pain mediation?” he whispered, running a finger over Jou’s brow. His pupils were dilated, but that could have just been from being inside the dark car.

“Got shot,” said Jou, closing his eyes and leaning in to Seto’s hand. “Hate you,” Jou whispered, as his head fell backwards again.

“I know, Mutt. I know.” Seto wrapped his arm around Jou’s shoulders to keep his head from falling backwards. “Guess it just goes to show you haven’t changed. Only a low class dog would let a little scratch like this knock them out.”

Jou’s eyes shot open and tried to focus on Kaiba. “You asshole, you can’t even stop the insults while I’m bleeding to death in your damn car!”

Jou looked like he was trying to shout, but it just came out as a labored growl. He was panting now, too. Seto thought about the comments he could make about that, but he didn’t want the Mutt to overexert himself, just to stay conscious. “You still growl like a dog when you’re really worked up, too.”

“You might wanna leave me at the hospital, Moneybags, otherwise I’m going to kick your ass as soon as my arm is stitched up.”

“Please, you were never a match for me when you were fit and healthy. It would be cruel to humiliate you while you’re injured.”

“That’s it,” Jou tried to crawl out of the seat, over the bodyguard next to the door, and out of the moving limo.

“Joey, get your ass back in that seat!” Mario snarled, tugging him backward. He looked around the limo, gaping at everyone else’s calm expressions. “Are they always like this?”

“Yes,” Mokuba, Yugi, and Roland all said together.

Jou ignored his friend and turned his rage on Seto. “If I’m stuck in this car, I’m gonna kick your ass right now!” Jou lunged at him, but instead of the headlock it looked like blonde was attempting, he shut his eyes and swayed, losing his balance.

Seto swept Jou up and cushioned his fall, lowering him to the floor of the limo gently. Seto lifted Jou’s eyelids. “Shit.” Cradling the smaller man close to him, Seto activated the intercom to talk with the driver. “If we’re not at the ER in two minutes, you’re fired.”

“We’re pulling in now, Sir.”

Seto carried Jou into the emergency room and followed the nurses as they took him away. “Are you a family member, sir?”

“Yes,” said Seto, without hesitating. He looked at Mario, who was hovering beside him. “So is he.”

“What are you telling them?” Mario demanded.

“That we’re his family. I can help with his registration so you can stay with him,” said Seto in English.

He followed the nurse to a desk, acutely aware of Roland following behind him. He answered all of Jou’s personal information from memory and provided a credit card to cover the charges. He explained the injuries he knew about, the medication he was on, and told the nurse that his own doctor, Nakamura-sensai, would be treating Jou once he was discharged.

Shortly afterwards, Seto was ushered into a waiting room where Mokuba and Yugi were pacing aimlessly in front of a row of vending machines. Mario stood outside a set of steel and plastic double doors. Seto sat down in one of the chairs and used his blackberry to look up Ally Solutions on the web. After the company’s own webpage were several articles about their exploits, the most recent involving a shooting in Los Angeles only a week earlier—company founder Joey Wheeler had been shot in the chest, but survived the attack thanks to a bulletproof vest. LAPD Captain Lucas Boyle refused to comment for the articles, but Ally Solution’s client was a pop star who’d used the news coverage to book interviews on a dozen talk-shows. 

Seto switched back to the company website and found that Jou employed a Boyle on his staff. They even had a family Facebook page with photos of twins in tiny soccer uniforms. Seto was a bit surprised to see Mario in many of the pictures, and Jou in one as well. The photo with Jou was a picture of him as part of a small group of hikers, each wearing a massive backpack and sporting dark tanned skin. One of the twins sat perched on top of Jou’s backpack. Seto couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, but Jou was holding the child’s feet and helping them balance. He looked content in the photo.

Seto checked the company’s stock and purchased all of it that his online brokerage firm would allow. He checked the stock again ten minutes later and found that its value had skyrocketed. Assuming Jou held a majority of the stock, Seto had just made him an instant millionaire.

Bored, and never good at being idle, he kept digging. Joey Wheeler had graduated from a small college in New Jersey with a degrees in criminal justice and political science. He was even near the top of his class. He worked as a police officer for a grand total of two years before striking out on his own, and he’d been astoundingly successful. He seemed to avoid social networking sites, but he showed up in local newspapers a lot. Joey Wheeler spent his time leading groups of at-risk youth on back country survival adventures, organizing neighborhood watch groups, teaching self-defense seminars, and even finishing a couple of marathons. That made Seto smirk. He had always dreamed of having a dog to go running with him each morning.

Finally, he checked his email, sorting through work as quickly as he could. Kaede already had the meeting minutes transcribed and had tracked down the transaction Nakamura-san had been so concerned about, although from her notes he only gathered it was something about a construction lien. He forwarded the notes to Nakamura-san and promised that he would look into it personally when he got back to work. With that sorted out, Seto was officially bored again. He started a math game on his phone to keep himself busy.

It was still two hours before Nakamura came out to speak with him. The old doctor was still a petite, slender man, with thin glasses and even thinner hair. What he lacked in size he had always made up for in sheer presence, and at the moment, the man was glaring at Seto. He was one of the few people Seto had met other than Jou who dared to glare at him.

“What? I didn’t do it!” When the doctor’s stern gaze solidified, Seto stood up. “This time, I really didn’t do it!”

The glare continued.

“No, I really didn’t do it! He got shot in the arm! I’ve never shot him! I might have gotten him a bit riled up in the car, but that was just keep him awake!”

The glare softened a bit, only to be replaced by a surprisingly gentle smile. “Kaiba-sama,” his doctor closed Jou’s file. It was nearly an inch and a half thick. “Katsuya is awake.”

“Is he alright?”

For a moment, sympathy flashed through Nakamura eyes. “Kaiba-sama, listing yourself as his next of kin on his admission paperwork does not relieve me of my duty to maintain my patient’s confidentiality. And despite your wishes, and Katsuya’s own threats, I cannot authorize his discharge until his blood pressure recovers—tomorrow at the earliest. And certainly not until Sakura has had a chance to visit or she’ll kill me. For now, you may go up. He is on the ninth floor. He is not to become excited or physically exert himself.” Nakamura glanced at Seto over the top of his glasses.

“I see. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“Of course. The nurses will page me if his condition fails to improve. Do you intend to run away again, Kaiba-sama?”

Seto’s posture sagged. “No,” he said in a small, pathetic voice.

“Good evening then, Kaiba-sama.”

Seto told the others and trailed behind them as they hurried to Jou’s room. He waited outside with Roland. Mokuba, Yugi, and Mario turned off their cell phones as the nurse instructed before going inside.

“Assign two of Kaiba Corp’s security officers to be here at all times,” Seto told Roland. “I don’t know anything about the shooting, but Jou and his bodyguard reacted as though they did, so I think I can safely assume that Mokuba and I were not being targeted this afternoon.”

“I believe the police have someone on the way, too.”

“I’m sure they do,” said Seto, knowing that it had to be Honda. “Let’s at least offer to help them.”

“Yes sir. Are you going to go in?”

Seto leaned against the handrail that ran the entire length of the hallway. After all the effort he put into finding the stupid Mutt, he wasn’t supposed to be standing outside the door to Jou’s hospital room, too afraid to go in and face him. He was Seto Kaiba. He wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything.

“Yes,” he said, after a silence that stretched on for far too long. “I thought I’d give him time to talk to Yugi, that’s all.”

Roland didn’t say anything.

“But you’re right—there’s a line between being reasonably patient and wasting time.” Seto stood up, straightened his suit, and pushed the door open without knocking. The hospital room was dark, lit only by a dim heat lamp over the bed. Mario caught his eyes when he came in but stayed glued to a spot near Jou’s headboard. Yugi sat in a chair that was pulled close to Jou’s bed, finishing a joke that already had Jou laughing.

Mokuba gave Seto what might have been the most mischievous look he’d ever seen from his younger brother.

“Yugi,” Mokuba draped an arm over the smaller man’s shoulders. “We should let Jou get some rest. He’s had a busy day.”

Yugi didn’t budge. “What if someone tries to get to him here? I think we need to stay. I’ll be quiet so he can sleep.”

“He’ll be safe here tonight,” Mokuba said gently. “I’m sure Seto and the police will make sure that Jou lives to see tomorrow morning.”

“Oh,” Yugi deflated a little.

“It’s alright, Yug’,” Jou assured him. “I’m not helpless, you know. Besides, it’s the middle of the day in California, so I should make some phone calls and find out if the police there have found anything.”

“Alright, Jou. But you’d better be here in the morning.”

“I’m not going to disappear on you again, Yugi. I promise.”

“Okay.” Yugi stood up and let Mokuba guide him to the door.

Mokuba stopped when they passed Seto. He didn’t even turn in Seto’s direction, but Seto heard his whisper clearly. “I’ll have answers by morning.”

Seto strolled towards the chair Yugi had just been sitting in and sat down, slouching. It was already the middle of the night and he was tired. “The police have officers downstairs, and Roland has assigned Kaiba Corp security to watch your door.”

The news didn’t seem to surprise Jou.

“Are you alright?”

Jou tried to shrug. All he could manage was a wince as he tried to life his left shoulder.

Already feeling annoyed, Seto took the Mutt’s chart from the foot of his bed and scanned the file quickly. “Four broken ribs, severe bruising on your chest, a torn muscle in your shoulder, twenty-five stitches, swelling to the left side of your face…. And you still took out six of my security guards! Did you always pull your punches with me, or have you just gotten that much better since high school?”

Jou chuckled quietly. “Hey Mario, could you give us a few minutes?”

“Sure, Joey. I was thinking of calling it a night, anyway. It looks like you’re covered ‘till morning and I won’t be any good to you without some sleep. I’m sure you’ll be sa—"

“No! Don’t you dare! You said I’d be safe this afternoon and you ended up jinxing it!”

“You make your own luck, Joey. Good night.” Mario waved and slipped out the door.

“So which was it?” Seto asked, when the door shut behind the other man. “Were you always holding back with me?”

“Yeah,” Jou admitted. “I never wanted to hurt you, just prove that you weren’t any better than me at something.”

“You never fought hard enough to win,” Seto reminded him.

“Yeah, well, it would have been a shame to scar that pretty face.”

Seto didn’t care that he was blushing. Despite himself, he was at a loss for words. Desperately, he said the first thing that came to mind. “Eight years ago, Mrs. Arashi asked me to say hello to you, if I ever caught up with you again. She said to tell you that you were always welcome to stay on her couch if you didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Mrs. Arashi?” Jou’s face lit up. “Oh, man, I ain’t thought about her in years! She made extra rice balls every day and always left some for me. I should go back by the old place and see if she’s still around.”

The infectious silence was back again.

“So are you just hanging out?” asked Jou, after nearly a minute.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Jou shot him a furious glare. “If you won’t start, then I will. What the hell, Kaiba? I refuse to be your whore, so you try to ruin my life? Do you have any idea how much damage that warrant would have done if it had come up on a regular background check?”

“Yes,” said Seto immediately. “I didn’t expect you to be going through a law enforcement background check, though. I assumed that, if you got arrested somewhere, they’d find the warrant and then send you back to Domino before they released you. Then I thought I’d rush down the jail, bail you out, drop the charges, sweep you off your feet and… well, I hadn’t actually planned beyond that point.”

Jou nodded, considering Seto’s explanation. “Decent plan. If I were a criminal, it probably would have produced results within a month or two. Thanks for the vote of confidence about my future, by the way. Really means a lot to me that you assumed I’d do so much with my life.”

“I am sorry about that,” Seto said honestly. “I am sorry about everything that happened, Jou.” Seto found his fingers twitching as though he were sending a text message, he could feel sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. “Believe it or not, it took Mrs. Arashi to tell me about the whole I’ll leave the money on the dresser thing.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious. Come on Jou, do you really think I’ve ever had to pay someone to sleep with me? I am a Kaiba. All I have to do is pull out one of the old trench coats and walk into a club if I want sex. Every time I have been in a relationship with someone, I take care of their expenses. My lovers don’t usually don’t work because it’s hard to keep up with my schedule and work normal hours. It was the one time in our lives when I haven’t been trying to insult you.”

Jou still looked skeptical. “You expect your lovers to treat you like a meal ticket and you don’t think that’s insulting? Whatever your intentions, the results are the same.”

“I am sorry,” Seto tried again.

“Okay,” said Jou, leaning back and shifting uncomfortably.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, you’re forgiven. Now let me sleep, Moneybags.”

“Just like that?”

“Tired.”

“You can sleep all night. How long are you planning on staying in Japan?”

“Thought it wouldn’t be that long. Course, I thought that I was leaving my problems back in the States. Now I don’t know.”

“So you came here to run away from the problem? That’s not what I’d expect from you.”

“So now I’m a coward because I’m not suicidal? I was supposed to stay and put my clients and staff in danger, is that it? Well, guess what Kaiba, you’re right. I am here because I’m a coward. If my people die, I’m the one who has to go tell their kids, or worse yet, their parents! I can face a lot of shit, but I don’t have the guts to do that!”

Seto swallowed his irritation and stared at Jou until he was finished.

“I didn’t call you a coward. You are an idiot, though.”

“If you’re so damn smart then go find someone intelligent to insult and let me sleep!” Jou pointed to the door.

“I meant,” Seto leaned closer and rested his elbow on Jou’s bed, “I would have stayed because there were more resources to deal with a death threat. More staff, more police, police who know about more about the situation, and who you know aren’t bought off. I would have been worried that, if something like a contract on my life followed me to another county, that I wouldn’t have anybody I could count on and I’d be totally screwed. I’ve been in your position a couple of times, and I was terrified each time. I would be more terrified if I had to face a threat to my life with nothing. But then, given that it would put your clients in danger for you to stay, I suppose leaving was the best option from a business stand point.”

Jou gaped at him for a moment.

“This is my way of working up to asking who is trying to kill you and if I can do anything about it,” Seto went on.

Jou’s eyes were already dropping. “I don’t know, and I doubt it. I’m tired.”

“I’m going to go get some coffee then come back and make sure security is in place.”

“Alrighty,” said Jou. “Thanks for earlier. The unyielding bastard thing….” Whatever else the blonde might have said was smothered by a yawn.

Outside the door, two Kaiba Corp security guards and two uniformed police officers were standing around chatting. The Kaiba Corp guards froze when they recognized Seto. He smiled, nodded to all of them, and headed off to hunt down coffee.

It was a good hour before he came back. He returned laden with four gigantic cups of coffee in a drink tray and a small coffee of his own, with a bag of creamer and sugar packets. He handed all but his own coffee to a stunned Kaiba Corp guard and slipped back into Jou’s room silently. The Mutt was already asleep, his blonde hair and skin glowing like gold under a heat lamp. Seto sat down beside him and took small sips from his coffee, determined to leave as soon as he finished the cup.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Jou hated waking up in hospital rooms.

He shifted in his sleep, noticing, as always, that the sheets he was wrapped in didn’t feel like his. The narrow bed was too soft and his toes felt an edge where there should have been nothing but mattress and down comforter. Two strips of hair on his arms stung where surgical tape had been used to secure an IV, and to secure a bandage over his upper arm. The skin beneath the tape burned despite the drug induced fog that made everything else feel like a distant ache. Unfortunately, the burning sensation was familiar.

“Fucking latex,” he hissed, finally forcing his eyes to open. He examined the tape holding the IV down for a moment, then reached down with his spare hand to try to find the call button for the nurse. His hand brushed soft hair instead.

“Seto?” he asked, lifting his head up.

The other man didn’t budge. The brunette had fallen asleep on the bed, his arms folded around his suit jacket to form a make-shift pillow.

Jou caught himself smiling like a stupid teenager. Seto had stayed beside him all night. He took a moment to actually look at Seto, since he hadn’t dared to do anything more than steal a quick glance at him the previous day. It had been almost a decade since the morning he left Seto’s home, yet somehow the man asleep beside him looked just like the boy he remembered. Always dressed in suits, Seto had looked like a man of twenty-five when they were teenagers, so he’s probably just grown into the look he’d always maintained. There were a few subtle differences. Seto’s hair was a bit shorter, his shoulders a bit broader, and Jou was surprised to find that his trademark smirk had softened and he even had faint wrinkles upon his cheeks—evidence that the prick might have learned how to smile.

Jou reached over the wake the brunette up when something else caught his eye. The angle Seto was sleeping at made the collar of his dress shirt and undershirt hover over his neck, revealing a tiny portion of the other man’s back. On Seto’s pale skin, Jou saw the unmistakable dark lines of a tattoo. Not just a tattoo, but a large tattoo, from the looks of it.

Careful not to move his legs, Jou sat up and raised the collar of Seto’s shirt. From there, Jou could clearly see the black form of a Chinese dragon’s head with a single burning red eye. What looked like a scaled white claw wrapped around the black dragon’s chin. Jou gasped at the sight, impressed with the detail in the dragon’s scales. The scales of the black dragon were outlined in the same bright red as its eyes, and the scales of the white outlined in blue, making even the little bit Jou could see sparkle. Aside from where the design obviously borrowed Kaiba’s trademark Duel Monsters design, there was something familiar about the dragons.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” said Seto. His voice sounded wide awake, although he hadn’t moved or opened his eyes.

Jou opened his mouth to shout the first retort that came to him, but he shut it again and stared at Seto critically. “Not a chance, Kaiba. It looks beautiful, but you’re not that irresistible.”

Seto sat up straight and stared at Jou with surprise. “Of course it’s beautiful—you designed it. And I was irresistible before, I am Seto Kaiba after all.”

“I don’t design tattoos, Kaiba.”

“I copied your work,” Seto explained honestly. “When I began looking for you, so did Nakamura-san. She showed me the mosaic, and the sketches from the design. Of course, one could say you copied Pegasus’ work in creating it, but since I own the copyright it’s not a big deal.”

“That tattoo came from the walkway I made? No way! Now I’ve got to see it, come on, take your shirt off.”

“Like I said, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“I don’t have any tattoos.”

“What? None?” Seto looked shocked.

“Nope. I’ve had to go through my share of background checks, and everything has to be explained for those, including every single tattoo.”

“You’re kidding. Why?”

“Gangs, mostly. Nearly every gang in the States puts their own tattoo on members. The first time I interviewed for a job as a cop there was a prison guard on the panel who was an expert in gang tattoos.”

“Ah. I always figured they were mainstream in America, but I guess not for everybody.”

Jou chuckled. “More mainstream than here. Kaiba, do you know what people would say if they found out you’ve got that?”

Kaiba rolled his eyes. “Some things are worth the risks. The worst that could happen is the media finds out and reports that I’m gay, a hooligan, or a Yakuza crime lord and parents stop buying my games for their kids because they’re worried I’ll corrupt them. It’s not that bad.” Seto leaned back and shook out his suit jacket.

“Not that bad? It would ruin Kaiba Corp!”

Seto shook his head slowly. “I doubt it. I think I’d have to step down as CEO, and that Mokuba would have to take over. It would mean I’d have to retire and live off of stock dividends for the rest of my life, maybe buy a backpack and go hide out in the mountains until the media storm blows over. I’ve always wanted to try backpacking anyway. I’m having trouble seeing a down side, now that I consider the benefits.”

Jou couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Seto was willing to sacrifice the career he’d spent his entire life building for the sake of a tattoo? This was definitely not the Seto Kaiba he remembered. “Wait a minute…. Buy a backpack? Like a backpacking backpack? You want to go hike into the mountains and hide from the news crews? Who the hell are you and where’s Seto Kaiba?”

“Is it that hard to believe?” Seto laughed at him.

“Yes. I couldn’t live without your precious technology for more than five minutes! Even if you tried, you’d cheat with a satellite phone or something—you’d probably have your dinner flown out on a chopper.”

“You don’t think I can handle camping?” Seto rose to his feet, his voice dripping with anger. Jou noticed the anger didn’t quite make it to his eyes. Despite his serious expression, but his eyes were smiling.

“I’ll tell you what, let’s make it a bet. I’ll bet you three hundred shares of Ally Solutions stock that I can survive camping out without technology for at least as long as you can.”

“What?” Jou growled. He surged forward, grabbing the brunette before his conscious brain caught on to what was happening. He caught Seto by the throat and pulled himself up to his knees by using his grip on Seto as leverage. “How dare you! Ally Solutions is mine, you bastard! I’m not going to be tricked into giving you a piece of it just so you can rip it apart, so whatever the hell you’re planning, you had better rethink it right now or I swear I’ll hurt you!”

Seto’s hands pulled at Jou’s fingers, clawing at the skin to try to loosen Jou’s grip. “Too hard….”  
Seto rasped, his cheeks going pale. “Katsuya….”

The sound of Seto saying his name brought him back to reality like a slap to the face. He loosened his grip on the brunette immediately, and as soon as he did so Seto knocked his arm away and grabbed his wrist, letting his arm’s momentum twist Jou around. Seto got a hold of his hand and bent his wrist in a gooseneck. He held the painful joint lock until Jou stopped struggling. Jou trembled as he realized how badly he’d just screwed up. He felt Kaiba’s chest press against his back as Kaiba tightened the gooseneck to hold him still. Soft lips brushed over the shell of his ear and warm, panting breath tickled his ear, making his squirm despite the pain.

“Let’s get this straight. Your company is publicly traded, Katsuya, just like mine. I’m sure you still own a majority of the stock, just like I do. The difference is, I have a diverse portfolio. I already own over a thousand shares of your stock. I like to reward companies that have been of service to Kaiba Corp, and Roland had nothing but good reports of Ally Solutions. It seemed like a sound investment. I was going to bet my stock, not try to take control of your company from you, you psychotic Mutt!”

Jou breathed a bit easier, but Seto didn’t release the joint lock.

Teeth bit into his ear lobe hard enough to sting, then a warm tongue covered the bite and roamed up the shell of his ear.

Jou felt his world spinning. The pain in his arm, the pain in his ear, and the helplessness of not being able to move were overwhelming. Some part of his brain told him that the medication was dulling his senses, slowing his reaction time and making him act like a pathetic wimp. But when he felt Seto’s tongue trace the shell of his ear again, everything narrowed to that single point of sensation, sending a tremor through his entire body. Despite the added pain from changing his posture, Jou let his head fall back, giving Seto more access to his neck. Through the drug-induced mental fog, Jou was vaguely aware of a low moan that sounded like it was coming from his own throat.

“Please stop,” Jou begged, his voice high and cracking.

“Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed fighting with you? Or what I used to fantasize about doing to you every time I pinned you to the ground?”The tongue found its way to the back of Jou’s neck, snaking its way down to Jou’s jaw line and back up again. Seto’s narrow hips ground against his ass, revealing just how turned on the brunette was. And that Jou wasn’t wearing anything under the open-backed hospital gown.

“You are so hot like this? All I’d have to do is twist your arm a little, shove you down on to the mattress, and I’d have the perfect angle. If I hold this wrist lock while I fuck you, I bet you’ll cum, screaming my name, within a minute.

Jou swallowed hard, ignored how turned on the pain in his wrist, Kaiba’s tongue, and Kaiba’s promises were making him. It was harder to ignore the rhythmic way Seto was grinding against him. He fought to keep his breathing steady, to get control over himself. “Never had you pegged for a sadist, Kaiba,” he muttered. He was humiliated by how wanton his own voice sounded at the moment.

A cold hand slipped inside his hospital robe and caressed his lower back, his hip, and then slipped around and trailed up and down along his erection without hesitation. Jou couldn’t stop a hoarse cry escape that sprang from his own throat as Seto’s fist closed around him, squeezing him hard.

“I’m not. I don’t get off by hurting you, Jou. I love seeing just how hot I can make you. Just hearing you moan is enough to make me hard, and I put a lot of effort into figuring out just what it takes to get you this worked up.”

A steady beep from the cardiac monitor attached to the IV pole sounded. There on the monitor was ample proof of how strong of an affect Seto had on him. His heart rate had jumped from the mid-fifties to over a hundred and twenty beats per minute.

“Damn. I guess I’ll have to drag you home and chain you to my bed after all.” Seto’s lips returned to Jou’s neck for a moment, kissing and licking in time with the silent spikes on the monitor. He gave Jou’s cock a firm stroke, then released Jou’s wrist, physically spun him around and pushed him back into bed. Jou pulled sheets and blankets up around himself and took several deep breaths, trying to calm down. A quick glance at Seto told Jou that the brunette wasn’t doing much better. He tucked a very obvious erection under his waist band, then let out a huff when he noticed it was still obvious. Jou swallowed a laugh and tossed Seto his suit jacket. He pulled the jacket on and was buttoning it up as the door opened and a nurse rushed in with a blood pressure cuff. Seto strolled towards the window, turning the blinds and staring through the slats with his back to them.

The nurse paused when she saw that Jou was fine, slowed her pace, and smiled. His heart rate was back down in the fifties. “Good morning, Jounouchi-san. Did you have a nightmare?”

“Flashback,” Jou lied. “I’m afraid I panicked when I woke up and didn’t recognize the room. I nearly strangled Kaiba before I realized who he was. He might need medical attention.”

“I am fine,” Seto insisted, without turning away from the window.

The nurse’s smile melted into a look of adoring sympathy. “This must be so difficult for you, Jounouchi-san. We seldom see such decorated officers here, but we will try to keep any surprises to a minimum. If you will permit me, I will take your blood pressure and temperature, then let your doctor know that you are awake.”

“Decorated officers?”

“Of course. Half of the Domino Police Department is outside waiting for news of your recovery.”

When the nurse was finished, Seto turned back towards Jou, his eyes blazing. Jou noticed the pink marks in the distinctive shape of his own hands forming around Seto’s neck. Small red spots were forming in the whites of Seto’s eyes where the bloodpressure change had caused the tiny blood capillaries in his eyes to rupture. Jou felt his stomach sink. 

He was lucky Seto hadn’t beat the crap out of him for what he’d done. Of course, if Seto got that tuned on every time they fought, it might end up leading to the most incredible sex of his life, but he really didn’t want to think about that right now. He needed to apologize before Seto came to his senses.

Before he could say anything, the door opened again. Seto turned back towards the window, but the door only opened a foot or so. “Katsuya-kun,” Nakamura said without sticking his head through the door, “May I come in?”

“Nakamura-sensai? Cool! Come in! Come in! I wasn’t really myself yesterday, but I’m so glad to see you. I’m glad you’re my doctor, too. Come in!”

“Have you had a good morning, Katsuya-kun? Oh, Kaiba-sama, hello,” Nakamura bowed to both of them. The doctor didn’t look surprised to see Kaiba there. His eyes scanned Kaiba’s suit curiously. “You stayed the night?”

“I wanted to make sure Jou didn’t disappear on us again.” Seto mumbled, turning back towards the conversation despite his desire for discretion.

“Of course, Kaiba-sama.”

“Thank you for taking such good care of him,” Seto added.

“Not at all, Kaiba-sama. You pay me a retainer to keep you healthy. For the first ten years I worked for you, you only interacted with two people in this world like a normal human being. Since Katsuya-kun was the only one who was not a blood relation, I consider maintaining his health to be a necessary component in maintaining your health. If you ever made other friends, I’d have done the same for them.”

“And you’re still wrong,” said Jou, his accent thick, “Kaiba doesn’t have friends, just different types of enemies. And nursemaids to clean up after him.”

Nakamura-sensai chuckled softly. “We exhausted that topic years ago, and my opinions haven’t changed.”

“We were rivals, not friends.”

“Katsuya, as far as Kaiba-sama’s concerned, you could never have been his rival. Your intelligence, while statistically equal to Kaiba-sama’s, would have been very difficult for Kaiba-sama to recognize and impossible for him to respect. He could not have seen you as a rival. I maintain that while you two were in school, he never viewed you as anything except a friend or romantic interest.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, my interests were always romantic. I don’t need friends. But there is no way the Mutt’s as smart as I am. Smarter than all of those other losers we went to school with, I’d believe, but you can’t be suggesting that his IQ is comparable to mine.”

“It wasn’t a suggestion, Kaiba-sama, it was a statement of fact. He took the same college placement tests you did, and his scores were roughly equal to yours.”

“I took them when I was twelve,” said Kaiba, his tone nonchalant.

“And he took them after going through his entire education so visually impaired that he was nearly blind.”

That seemed to catch Kaiba off guard. He folded his arms defensively across his chest.

“It’s kind of you to stick up for me, Doc, but I’m always going to be a stupid Mutt in Kaiba’s head. Could you get this damn tape off, though? The rash is really starting to hurt.”

“Is that latext?” Nakamura scribbled a note on his clipboard. “I’m sorry I didn’t check your admission report, I’d have noted the allergy. Here, let’s get the IV out and then I’ll change the dressing for one that’s latex free.” Nakamura removed the tape and pulled the IV out, pressing a cotton ball into Jou’s arm while he did. He held the cottom ball tight for a moment but didn’t tape it down.

While Doctor Nakamura was fumbling through the supplies in the room, Kaiba’s glare softened into an evil smirk. He strolled closer to the bed and whispered, “I thought I told you that you were right about the dog comments.”

Jou felt the blush start at his stomach and work its way up like lava in a volcano.

The doctor eventually had the nurse bring in a clean gauze pad and an ace bandage to cover the stitches in Jou’s arm. “I’ll have the nurse bring you some cortisone cream for the rash at the IV site, but you can’t apply anything near the stitches.”

“It’ll go away on its own in a few hours,” Jou assured him.

“Alright. Now, Kaiba-sama….” Doctor Nakamura turned to the other man, his eyes concerned.

“I knew he was smart,” Seto insisted, before the doctor could say anything else. “How else could he have slept through every class, not done any homework, and still gotten average grades?”

“I wasn’t asleep through all of them,” said Jou. “Most of the time it hurt to look at the board, so I just shut my eyes.”

“You snored.”

Jou couldn’t help laughing. “Alright, so I was asleep. None of it was that interesting, you know.”

“You two really are well suited for each other,” said Nakamura shaking his head in resignation. “But that wasn’t what I was going to say. If you have trouble breathing, swallowing, speaking, or feel faint, please call me immediately. Katsuya-kun, I have no doubt that he provoked you, but you should try to exercise a bit more self-control. You both should. If I get called in the morning to set broken bones and you’re both suddenly acting smug, I’m going to resign.”

Jou was knew the blush on his face was almost as intense as the one Kaiba was sporting.

“You’re free to go as soon as the nurse can get the discharge paperwork together. Sakura said that I’m to tell you to stay out of trouble and that she hopes you’ll join us for dinner tomorrow night.”

Jou smiled brightly. He was never one to accept charity lightly, but Sakura had disguised her crusade to help him as domestic incompetence and given him a job. It was the only help his teenage pride ever allowed him to accept, and since it came at a time when he desperately needed some way to help his dad make ends meet, it had been a lifesaver. “Tell her I that I always stay out of trouble.”

Nakamura tisked. “It’s not nice to tell lies, Katsuya. Dinner?”

“Absolutely,” Jou agreed.

“Given the security issues, maybe dinner at my house would be a better option,” Seto suggested. “Tomorrow at eight?” 

“We’ll be there,” Nakamura agreed. “Katsuya, if you feel faint or light-headed again, call me. The number will be on your discharge instructions, although it hasn’t changed in all this time. And remember,” Nakamura glanced at Seto, who was still standing there blushing, “No physical exertion for at least two days.”

“I can’t laze around,” Jou insisted. “Someone is trying to kill me. I don’t know for sure who, but they followed me all the way from California to do it. I can’t afford to spend forty-eight hours sitting on Kaiba’s couch.”

“Oh dear,” Nakamura looked concerned. “Do you have anyone you can contact to provide security? I’m sure Kaiba-sama’s estate is the safest option, but perhaps you could hire a bodyguard?”

Jou chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “I am a bodyguard. But an associate is here to keep an eye on me, too. He’s one of the best in the business.”

“Well,” Nakamura nodded, “I suggest you follow his advice then.”

“His advice,” Kaiba cut in, “was that you accept my help.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t remind me.”


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

“I knew you’d think this was the coolest shit ever.” Mario whispered, in a tone that suggested he had just found the ultimate drug.

Jou was in heaven. “Damn… And here I thought staying with Kaiba was going to be awkward and dull.”

“Are you gentlemen sure you wouldn’t rather join the others for breakfast?” a young security guard asked nervously, his English unpracticed but fairly understandable.

“No,” they answered together.

“I’m not crazy about the fact that I’m stuck here,” Jou explained. “I’d rather avoid your boss until I’ve thought of a really good way to piss him off.”

The young guard swallowed and grew pale. “You must be very brave.”

“You could just tell him you’ve decided you and I are fine sharing a room,” Mario pointed out.

“I might have actually gotten some sleep last night if you were there. I kept waking up wondering if the bastard was going to sneak into my room,” Jou replied.

“Oh come on, he’s been hiding from you since we got here yesterday. In fact, I wandered in here trying to find a way for you to break into his room.”

Jou blushed and dropped his head on to the console in front of him. “What happened to looking sexy and making him miserably jealous?”

Mario shook his head, his lips pursed thoughtfully. “I can’t do it. Do you know that look I told you about?”

Jou raised a single eyebrow and lifted his head up.

“That mind-blowing sex look that you get on your face when I’ve got you pinned?”

“What about it?”

“I have to pin you to the ground to see that look. This Kaiba bastard just needs to walk into the room. And the way you look at him…. It’s twenty times hotter. If you had ever looked at me like that I think I would have learned to like it rough just to keep that look on your face.”

Jou stared at his friend for a moment, then dropped his head again, hitting it against the counter several times. It was true, though. Those few moments when they hadn’t managed to avoid each other had been so charged that even Yugi had commented on it. Although, if Jou had learned anything while hanging out with Yugi at the Kaiba Mansion yesterday, it was that there was absolutely no subject too taboo for Yugi to make jokes about. His innocent little friend had grown into a bigger pervert than him, Seto, Mokuba, Honda, and Otogi combined.

“I’ll still play the part if you want me to,” said Mario quickly, leaning over Jou’s shoulder to drool over the updated monitoring station of the Kaiba Mansion security system. “But I don’t think you want me to.”

They watched a computerized display of the entire manner, staring at the way each section changed its color coding based on which authorized radio transmitter was deactivating the motion sensors in the room at any given moment. Everyone authorized to have access to the secure areas of the Kaiba mansion was given a small pin that transmitted a coded signal to deactivate all motion sensors and pressure pads in their immediate location. Thirty seconds after an authorized signal was lost, all sensors automatically re-armed until another authorized person, or an intruder, was detected.

The color-coding of each room on the display was a way to easily identify and locate everyone in the house. Kaiba’s office was red, so his security team could find him quickly. Kaiba’s name was displayed below a small dot that appeared near the far wall of the room. Roland had explained that Mokuba’s location, when he got around to coming home, would also be displayed as red. If more than one person was in the room, the system displayed the color that corresponded to the most important person. Security staff showed up as blue, domestic staff as green, and authorized guests as yellow. Except for Yugi and Jou, apparently. Mokuba had insisted that security treat Yugi as a member of the family, and so his transmitter produced a red signal on the display. Jou was ashamed to find that, thanks to his presence, the security office was highlighted in red, too.

“You told me his security was tight, but this is Buckingham Palace tight.”

“Pressure pads under the oriental rugs on the stairs,” Jou noted in admiration, “So they could keep the antique wood in place. Duel beam alarms on the windows so they’re not running around looking for an intruder every time a bird lands on the window. The only cameras in the whole place are on the two gates. Are the transmitters kept on the premises when the staff leaves at the end of the day?” Jou asked the poor security officer who had been ordered to let them have full access to the control center during his shift.

“Yes sir,” the young man replied. “There is a thirty-minute debriefing period for shift change. Each transmitter is handed off to an assigned person on the next shift, and motion sensors are set up around the perimeter to sound an alert if anyone accidentally wears one off site. Except domestic staff. They turn theirs in to security at the end of the day.”

“Are we allowed to wear ours out?” Jou asked, fingering the tiny pin on the collar of his T-shirt.

“Yes sir. The Kaiba family and designated guests keep theirs at all times. Yours are programmed to unlock and disarm the house to permit access any time—except to Kaiba-sama’s office, of course.”

“So?” Mario stared at Jou.

“Coolest shit ever,z’ Jou agreed, not taking his eyes off the display. “Hey, Kaiba’s going to the toilet!”

“Yhat really is more than I would want to know about a client,” Mario insisted.

“It’s a lot less intrusive than following them in, checking the stall, and standing there. At least Esme’s the one stuck following Chantel to the ladies room.”

Mario muttered a short prayer of thanks in Spanish.

“Chantel?” the young guard perked up. “The pop singer? You work for her?”

Mario sat back in his chair looking glum. “I would pay ten thousand dollars to be able to say we don’t work for her.”

“Tough. We do.”

The security guard was vibrating with excitement. “Really? That has to be amazing! She is so hot, and such an incredible singer! I know she gets bad press and all, but to work for a real celebrity must be very exciting!”

Jou glanced back at Mario. The two exchanged uncertain looks for a moment, and then Jou nodded at the large man. Mario pulled out a business card and passed it to the kid. “We work on salary; we have a full benefits package, including a flex-spending account, retirement, and tuition reimbursement if you want to continue your education. If you are willing to promise that you will work with Chantel as long as she is our client, I will pay for your relocation expenses myself. I’ll even blackmail my brothers into helping you move in.”

The young guard’s face lit up as if he had just found out that there really is a Santa Claus. “How soon could I start?”

“As soon as we can get you a work visa, kid,” said Mario with a perfect smile. “What’s your name?”

* * * * * *

Seto Kaiba typed as quickly as he could. He had reviewed meeting minutes, requested details about the missing three million dollars even though his secretary’s email assured him that it was nothing to worry about, and was typing up a few suggestions for changes to the storyboards and design sketches for his new RPG. His secretary had uploaded another dozen things that needed his attention, but they were all in a prioritized list, so he should be able to blow through it all quickly, check his stocks, and then go track down his new houseguest.

He knew Jou had been anxious from the moment he walked through the door. The normally laid-back blond had been pacing around the main room, fidgeting with his right hand, poking at the sling that carried his left arm, and then poking at every priceless artifact that Kaiba had in his home. Not that Seto cared. The look on Jou’s face when a loud alarm sounded the moment he picked up a Ming vase was easily worth the risk of him breaking the vase. The blond had dropped it, but to the surprise of everyone it the room, had bent himself in half to catch it with his good hand before it hit the ground.

Seto shuddered at that memory and wished, for the first time in many years, that he still had security cameras everywhere. Seeing Jou bent at the waist with his ass sticking up in the air, almost inviting Seto to sneak up and molest him, was just too delicious. It was the type of thing Seto would love to be able to replay on his computer over and over again when he needed a break from work. Unfortunately, Seto wasn’t the only one whose mouth watered at the sight. Jou’s ‘bodyguard’ hadn’t even tried to disguise the way his eyes roamed over Jou’s ass. Any thoughts Seto had entertained about the man being worth tolerating were obliterated in that moment. A good hour of his morning had been spent developing a plan to separate Jou from the other man and force Jou to stay in Japan.

Every plan he came up with required more free time than he had available at the moment. He sat, riveted to his desk, determined to finish every project for the week quickly. He knew all too well that every moment he spent locked in his office was working was one more moment when Jou and his attractive bodyguard would be alone in the house.

Just before noon, Seto leaned back and double-checked the pile of work that had accumulated on the server. He had done everything he’d planned on accomplishing and was getting ready to sign out when his door slammed open. Seto didn’t look up from the screen, but he smiled. He had been half-hoping that Jou would break into his office in a rage all morning.

“We have a problem,” a voice that definitely wasn’t Jou’s said from right in front of his desk.

“You haven’t slept,” said Seto, really trying to force some disapproval into his voice. He looked up at his brother’s exhausted green eyes curiously. “Did you eat?”

“No. Just sake.”

Seto tisked and shook his head. “You’re willing to fuck up your blood sugar levels that much? Things didn’t go the way you planned?”

Mokuba snorted. “That is putting it mildly.”

“Close the door, sit down, and tell me what you’ve found out.”

Mokuba closed the office door and collapsed into a leather chair in front of Seto’s desk. Seto dug through the lowest drawer of his desk and pulled out a protein bar and an energy drink. He tossed them to Mokuba, who nodded in thanks when he caught them. “We have a serious problem,” Mokuba repeated, ripping open the protein bar. He took a few bites before continuing. “I asked around, trying to find out who accepted the contract to kill Jounouchi. I spent the entire night asking about foreigners, figuring that Jou’s problems had followed him here….”

“And?”

“And they didn’t. I ended up driving to Tokyo last night to talk to contact there. I did not get an explanation. Would you like to know what happened instead?”

“No, not really. I’d rather go over budget expenditures. What do you think?”

Mokuba finished off the protein bar and leaned forward. “I got nothing but pathetic kow-towing apologies, then had sake and women thrown at me till dawn. The last word on the subject was Please tell your brother we will not fail again. Tell me, Seto, how far did you go in your attempt to find track down your little fixation?”

Despite being a genius, it took Seto’s brain a moment to get over the shock of Mokuba’s accusation and process what he was actually saying. “You think I put a contract out on Jou’s life?”

“No,” Mokuba shook his head, popped open the energy drink and drained it in one go. “But I think you might have been stupid enough to ask the wrong people to find him without specifying that you wanted him brought back home alive and unharmed. I need to know who you spoke with, Seto, otherwise I can’t fix this. I’m sure you kept records of every contract and every favor you called in. I need to know everything you did to find him.”

“I’ve got records of most of it,” said Seto, turning back towards his computer. “A lot of it I don’t remember, to be honest. I was just kind of walking around Jou’s neighborhood in a daze for a week or so.”

“Well, open everything you’ve got. I’ll arrange for you to meet with one of the local bosses so you can personally explain that you’ve had a change of heart, and then we’ll….” A spaced-out look filtered over Mokuba’s eyes for a moment. He stood up abruptly. “Fuck! I have to remember to eat more!”

“I don’t really think now is the time to worry about your low blood sugar, little brother.”

“Yes, it damn well is! Give me another protein bar, find a weapon and follow me.”

“Why?”

“Because I was too close to a hypoglycemic crash to notice something important when I came home. Where are Roland and Jou?”

Seto shrugged. “I’m sure they’re around somewhere. We can also call security and ask them to find them.”

“No!” Mokuba jumped from his chair to stop Seto from picking up the phone. “No. We’ll go look for them ourselves.”

Seto leaned back in his chair and stared at his little brother. “Are you sure this isn’t a blood-sugar thing? I know you can act drunk sometimes, when it gets too high or too low.”

“No, no, it’s not. I was at that point twenty minutes ago, though, when I came through the front gate. That’s probably why I didn’t notice. We have to go, now!”

“Mokuba….” Seto grabbed another protein bar but didn’t get up.

“Seto, do you want to find Jou, or do you want to find his corpse?”

After pulling a loaded pistol from the top drawer of the desk, Seto checked to make sure the safety was on, shoved it into his pants at the small of his back, and followed his brother out the door. He raced down the stairs after Mokuba. He followed him across the main foyer and to the small white door that led the security control center. The normally locked-at-all-times door was slightly ajar, held open by the back of one of Seto’s uniformed security guards. The sound of laughter poured out of the room.

Seto could hear Jou’s voice from inside the room. Mokuba opened the door, but he couldn’t squeeze his way into the crowded room.

“…so he was running away from the photographers, and half crouched down so they couldn’t get a good shot of him in just that towel, and then he turned back because the girl—she had run out covered in a sheet, mind you—had stopped to talk to the reporters, and bam! He ran face first into a palm tree. He ended up on spread eagle and naked on the ground with a bloody nose while we were trying to hold the reporters back. Our driver had to literally push through the crowd to get to him, and then the idiot just sits there cursing and Mario here has to pick his royal ass up, throw him over his shoulder, and carry him to the car.”

Roland’s hearty laugh could clearly be heard over the other laughter in the room.

“And of all the pictures that the tabloids ran, they chose Mario throwing his naked ass over his shoulder and carrying him to the car for the cover. It looked like the prince was caught in some weird orgy in Cabo and was so sex crazed that Mario here literally had to tear him away without even giving him time to get dressed. I don’t think the poor kid has been back to North American since then. We got a lot of publicity over it, though. Suddenly a dozen rich parents wanted to send us to tail their kids on spring break.”

“And we’ve been glorified baby-sitters ever sense,” Mario complained. “I swear that picture it the reason we’re stuck being sexually assaulted by pop stars.”

“It totally is. Chantel mentioned the photo when she requested you be specifically assigned as her bodyguard during her initial interview.”

“You ass! I knew you pimped me out to her! Man, when we get home I’m going to skip Sunday dinner for a month so you can deal with Jesus on your own!”

Seto saw Jou sitting at the control center display, surrounded by his own bodyguard and most of Seto’s staff. He rested his head on his good arm and slouched in the chair, looking just like the bright Mutt Seto remembered from high school. He also looked smug.

“You don’t think I’ll do it?” Mario challenged.

“Doesn’t matter. Esme loves me enough to protect me from him and you know it. And if she won’t, your mom will.”

“Gentlemen!” Mokuba roared. It didn’t take much to get him angry, and not being noticed by their staff was more than enough to set him off.

Everybody in the room snapped to a quiet attention immediately, except Jou. Jou’s bodyguard glanced towards him, took his cue from Jou, and stayed slouched in his chair as well. Mokuba wormed his way into the center of the room, staring into the face of every guard he saw. “Gentlemen, I would like an explanation….”

“Mr. Kaiba, Mr. Delgado suggested that Mr. Wheeler has an affinity for automated security system design, so I allowed them into the control center to observe the updates we’ve made since Mr. Wheeler was our guest eight years ago. After a detailed explanation of the automated system, they made some suggestions for additional updates and were just sharing some professional exploits while the men were on a break. I assure you the system had been adequately monitored while they’ve been here.”

“What I want an explanation regarding,” Mokuba paused and pulled up the gate cameras on the display and used the keyboard to turn the cameras so he could see the guards, “Is why there are three guards on the gate instead of six, and why I have never seen these three men before. Are these three men members of your staff?”

Roland stared at the men on the camera for a moment, and then slowly climbed to his feet. He produced a handgun from somewhere on his person, turned off the safety, and pulled back the slide. “Alright gentlemen, break’s over. We have a Code 1 Breach. Transmitters and uniforms are no longer effective for identification purposes. The gate, at least, is compromised. I will lock down the house and security officers I can personally vouch for will search the house in three-man teams. You will move room by room and detain everyone in the building. Every member of the domestic staff and every officer I cannot personally vouch for is to be secured, searched for weapons, and detained in basement storage rooms. Notify the police of the situation and inform them that we will be dealing with it internally but that we will require the assistance of the bomb squad shortly.”

Roland typed a single command and the display of the house flashed red three times. Every door and window locked and what must have been large fire doors closed off each segment of the house from the others.

“Every transmitter except those in this room are now disabled. Since I know everyone here, that should be sufficient. Mr. Kaiba, you, your family, and your guests will be escorted to the safe room in the sub-basement.”

“No,” Mokuba insisted. “Seto and Jou are the only ones likely to be in danger. Everyone else should be fine as long as the house stays locked down. Mr. Delgado and I will help you sweep the house. Where’s Yugi?”

“In your room downloading naughty videos,” Jou answered, nodding at the monitor.

“Good.” Mokuba pulled out his cell phone and him.

In the silent room, virtually everyone could hear Yugi’s voice through the speaker. “Hi babe.”

“Yug’,” Mokuba said seriously, “We’ve got a bit of an issue with security. Your door should be automatically locked, but I need you to promise that you’ll stay in there, stay quiet, and wait for me to come get you. Do no open the door for anyone else.”

“Is this about Jou?”

“Probably.”

“But it’s only been a day. No one knows he’s here.”

Mokuba rolled his eyes. “The entire Yakuza knows he’s here, thanks to me,” he whispered. “I thought I was trying to find out if they’d accepted a foreign contract on him. I didn’t think about what I was saying. Also, do you know security can monitor everything you download?”

“Of course I do. I figured Jou might find his way to that weird little room, so I thought I’d make sure he had something to keep him entertained. And if not, I know there’s always somebody stuck down there with nothing to do.”

Jou buried his blushing face in his right hand. “There was nothing entertaining about that horse video!”

Yugi’s innocent laughter came over the phone. “Tell him to wait until he sees the authentic size and texture animal replica dildos! Ohh, and the river trout one! I’m not so into girls, but it’s hilarious.”

Jou looked like he was trying to bury his face more, but with one arm in a sling he just didn’t have enough fingers to hide completely. He settled for curling into a ball and slipping out of his chair, on to the floor. “Yugi, you weren’t supposed to become a pervert!” Jou shouted without looking up.

Despite the situation, Mokuba was doubled over laughing. Everyone else in the room was torn between looking mortified and trying not to laugh. Even Seto felt his normally stoic mask crumble at the sight of Jounouchi literally being floored by embarrassment. Seto would have to get Yugi to order him one of those dildos so he could break it out at opportune moments just to make Jou turn purple.

“I am so glad you don’t speak Japanese,” Jou whispered to Mario, who just looked confused.

“Alright, alright,” Seto tried to restore some semblance of order. “I’d rather not spend the day locked in that safe room with the Mutt. My penthouse at Kaiba Corp has only one point of entry. Thanks to my step-dad, the penthouse is lined with reinforced steel, just like our safe room here. It would be just as secure, and we would still have access to outside lines and basic amenities in case it takes you a while to clear the house. Are the vehicles secure?”

“I don’t know,” said Roland honestly.

“I do,” said Jou. Ho motioned to the display. “I’ve been in here since seven this morning. The only time the motion sensors in the garage were deactivated was when Mokuba pulled in. His transmitter was the only one in the garage, and the alarm reactivated when he left. There hasn’t been any other movement there.”

“You actually expect me to believe that you can keep track of that display without any training and while you’re in the middle of a conversation?” Seto scoffed.

“Of course I can. This is cool; I’ve been playing with it all morning.”

“Playing with it isn’t the same as knowing how to use it. And there’s too much there for anyone to keep track of without experience.”

Jou stood up and glared at him. “You are such an asshole! You can’t even give me credit for being able to keep my eyes open! Fine, if you want proof, you can have it. You went to the toilet four times this morning, for a grand total of forty-seven minutes. Otherwise, you’ve been at your desk all morning, but you often turn around to star out the window. Your housekeeper is too afraid of you to go into your office and must have left your breakfast tray outside the door this morning. Her transmitter didn’t enter the office and the pressure pad readings indicate that she was five pounds heavier going up the stairs than down. Yugi’s spent the morning in Mokuba’s room downloading naughty videos. And the only security staff who haven’t been following predictable patrol routes are….” Jou scanned the display for three dots he had noticed earlier. Since the building was locked down, none of the dots had left the rooms they were in moments before. “Here, here, and here,” he pointed out quickly. “Those would be your intruders,” he sat back down, a worried expression on his face.

“The main entrance, the hallway between the kitchen and the garage, and your guestroom, Mr. Wheeler,” Roland said. He motioned to the crowd of guards around them. “There is no secure path to the garage. Team Four, safety catches off, get a shield and cuffs out of the closet and go secure those three targets.”

As one, the men in coveralls began to move.

“I suppose it was a good thing we decided to annoy you all day,” Jou said to one of the guards. “I’d have been in my room otherwise….”

Seto met Jou’s eyes. He did not want to be locked in that damn safe room again. He really didn’t want to be locked in there with the Mutt, of all people. But Jou’s comment drove home just how foolish Seto’s had been to assume that Jou would be safe simply by staying in his home. Would his penthouse really be any safer? It would be infinitely more comfortable, but the rational answer was to use the safe room—and despite the terror bubbling up from his stomach at the prospect of entering that room again, Seto Kaiba was always rational.

The sound of gunfire, muffled by distance, could be heard through the door.

“We’ll use the safe room,” Seto declared.

* * * * * *

Perfect. So much for Jou’s ‘hide with the guards and avoid Seto until he died’ plan. Could he really deal with being alone with Kaiba? The last time he’d been alone with the other man had been when he woke up in the hospital, and he could still see the faint outline of bruises around Seto’s neck.

Jou watched Seto move towards the back of the room and open a small green door that blended in with the paint in the room, revealing a dark set of concrete stairs. A light flickered to life when the door swung inward. In the dim light, Jou caught a glimpse of Seto’s eyes and froze cold. 

In all the years he’d known Seto, he had never seen Seto afraid. Not when Mokuba was kidnapped, when the Big Five threatened to steal his body, not when the world fell apart around them as they fought by Yugi’s side. Even a moment earlier, the close sound of gunfire hadn’t managed to evoke the terror that opening that small door seemed to bring out. Seto was frightened.

Jou glanced around at Mokuba and Roland, wondering if either of them had noticed.

“Come on, Mutt. It won’t long….” The quiver in Seto’s voice made Jou shiver. 

“Hold up,” Jou said carefully. “I’m not going to go hide in some closet while everybody else is up here dealing with this mess.”

“You’re the one they’re targeting, Mutt, it’s not safe for you to do anything else.”

Jou rolled his eyes. He got up slowly, trying to hide the way the pain medications made him sway when he got to his feet. He unbuckled the sling and pulled it off from around his neck, wincing as he straightened his arm out after nearly two days of being immobile. “Aw, come on Mom, let me go outside and play with the other kids! I promise I’ll be careful.”

“You are such an idiotic little shit!” Seto snapped. “Get in here!”

“No. Do you really want to be stuck down there when everyone you care about is up here risking their lives? When they might be killed if you’re not there? Suppose they do plant a bomb in the house, do you really want to be down in a safe room and hear it go off, to hear them dying?”

Jou saw Seto’s jaw tighten and his hands clenched into fists. Jou wasn’t surprised when Seto grabbed him by his T-shirt and tried to hoist him off the ground. Accusing the rich bastard of failing to protect his loved ones was one of the only sure-fire ways Jou had always used to get Seto into a full-blown rage. “Why can’t you ever just let things happen the way they’re supposed to, you low class imbecile! I’m trying to help you!”

“I never asked you to help me!”

Seto pulled him close enough that Jou could feel his breath against his lips. “You need my help, moron! It’s my fault you’re in danger and it’ll be my fault if you get killed, and I’m not going to let that happen!”

Jou stopped what was going to be snarl and stared at Seto, curious and completely calm. He tilted his head to the side. “That’s not part of the script, Moneybags. You’re supposed to scream that you can’t stand my flea ridden ass and punch me, I’m supposed to scream that I hate you and try to tackle you, then we roll around for a bit until I get the upper hand and you agree that we should help clear the house. How is this your fault?”

Seto dropped him on his feet and spun away, staring at the dark wall opposite the console. “Apparently,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest, “I’m the one trying to kill you.”

Jou stepped back and stared at him. “You hired someone to kill me?” he laughed. “You’ve never been afraid of getting your own hands dirty, Moneybags, why didn’t you just do it while we were alone in the hospital?”

“I said apparently! I’m not actually trying to kill you!”

Jou found himself slipping into a defensive stance. “Are you sure? After you charged me with a felony to have me arrested and brought back to Domino to go to court, I’m not sure I’d put much passed you.”

“Damn it, I spent a fortune trying to find you, to bring you back to me! I just… Mokuba says even he doesn’t believe it happened on purpose! I needed to find you! I stayed in your building for weeks. I wandered around your neighborhood. I checked hospitals and jails. I filed those charges so you would get arrested and sent back to Domino! And I might have solicited help from people who thought I wanted you dead instead of home safe, but I don’t remember doing it! As we’ve already established, I was a bit ignorant of some of the less savory elements of society.”

Jou stared at Seto’s back for a moment, not sure what to say. “You’re the one who’s trying to kill me? If that’s the case, why now? Eight years of the delusion of safety and then you decide you want to hire someone to kill me? What sense does that make?”

Seto finally turned to face him, his eyes a mixture of honest confusion and Kaiba’s typical sense of superiority. Jou never hated that superior look so much in his life. He did the only thing that seemed logical. Jou punched him.

Seto stumbled backwards into the open doorway. Jou grabbed him by his suit jacket and pulled him forward, to keep him from tumbling down the stairwell. He stared at Jou with uncertainty in his eyes now. There was also the hint of something that looked like desperation. 

“I guess I deserved that one,” Seto admitted. “But for the record, I didn’t do anything recently. It was years ago. I don’t even remember doing it. However, I do keep fairly close track of my money, and every time I paid a private detective, I kept records of it. If I transferred funds, withdrew cash, or wrote a check to anybody there will be a record of it. I just need to find that record to track down who I made the deal with, then I can undo it. Then you can run back to the States with your boyfriend. And as much as I fucking hate it, even I can’t think of any logical reason why you shouldn’t. Except that I’ve got to make sure you’re safe until I’ve sorted this out.” Seto looked sad as he touched his cheek. 

“Once again, off script. You’re supposed to hit back, not use actual words to effectively communicate. I feel seriously out my of depth here.” Jou managed to glare for almost ten seconds before he began to chuckle. He tried to hold it in, especially since Seto looked so serious, but he just couldn’t help himself.

“What?” Seto demanded.

Jou was laughing aloud now, trying to stop long enough to catch his breath so he could talk. When he could finally take a deep breath without laughing, he touched Kaiba’s cheek affectionately. “Honda said you had your stupid moments, but not only did I not believe him, but I had no idea just how stupid he was talking. Are you honestly trying to say that you hired someone to kill me by accident?”

Seto shrugged and stared down at the floor. Jou saw Seto press his lips together tight, the anger in his eyes burning. “Remind me to hurt that traitor.”

“How could not notice arranging to have some killed?” Jou laughed. “You just didn’t notice you were talking to a gangster instead of a private investigator?”

“I told you, I don’t remember who I talked to, but I will find out. I don’t let hundreds of thousands of dollars out of my sight without a record of it.”

Jou patted him on the shoulder. “Millions, Kaiba. Assassination is dangerous, so the guys who do it tend to charge a lot. This would have cost you millions.” Jou didn’t say anything when he felt Kaiba’s hand on the small of his back.

“Impossible,” said Seto quickly, tugging Jou’s hips close to his. “I have never lost track of millions of…. Nevermind, I know what transaction is was. I wasn’t responsible, but my office does have a undocumented three million dollar wire transfer that I haven’t had a chance to track down yet. The money was only withdrawn recently, and my secretary said it was earmarked to clear a construction lein. If I can get into the office within being shot at, it should be easy to trace that transaction to whoever authorized it.”

“This is starting to sound more like a con by the minute, Kaiba.”

“It’s not! Nakamura-san is the one who pointed it out to me, so we can go ask her about it personally if you don’t believe me. We should probably call them to cancel that dinner party tonight anyway, because who knows how long the bomb squad will take to clear the house….”

Jou shook his head, not sure whether he should punch Seto again or hug him. If Seto really was just that ignorant, then everything could be cleaned up with a few words. He wouldn’t have to throw his life away and hide—or worse, kill somebody—to stay alive. “The weird part is that believe you. I just can’t believe that you could do something so stupid. You’re Seto Kaiba, for crying out loud.” Jou laughed again.

“I’ll fix it. And you….” Seto pulled Jou to a stop again, “You were not supposed to exert yourself yet.” He leaned in close and licked Jou’s bottom lip gently. “Bad dog.”

“Would you two stop?” Roland shouted. He was seated at the center console, typing commands and watching transmitters move through the mansion and occasionally issuing commands through a radio on his lapel.

Jou glanced at the monitor, then at the almost empty control room. “Where did Mario and Mokuba go?”

“Mr. Delago went to do his job. Master Mokuba is assisting him. I think they both agreed they’d rather get shot than sit here and put up with two. I rather envy them.”

“Is the situation contained?” Seto asked, his voice calm again. Jou glanced up at him, relieved to see the same analytical coldness he always did when he looked at him. Seto still hadn’t let go of him, though.

“Six targets have been detained by law enforcement personnel and the bomb squad is en route. Team four has split into two and three man teams to clear the building, but I have no more motion alarms, so I think we’re clear.”

“Damn it,” Jou kicked the ground. “I miss all the fun because you have to go and have a panic attack.”

The hand on the small of his back fisted in his shirt. “What are you talking about?”

Jou rolled his eyes, then nodded towards the small, closed door that led to Seto’s safe room. Seto’s mouth dropped open. “You…?”

“I like to think I’m the world expert on how to piss you off,” Jou bragged. “Someday you’ll have to tell me what’s down there that’s such a big deal.” Jou gave Seto a soft, knowing smile then slapped him on the ass with his good hand.

“Hey!” Seto jumped. “It’s…. nothing. You were being ridiculous.” He slipped away from Jou and crossed his arms, closing himself off. He stared at the monitors, the table, and the floor, looking everywhere but at Jou. If Jou hadn’t been so utterly focused on Seto, he would have missed the quiet “Thank you” that Seto breathed out.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

.  
“Stop fidgeting, Mutt.” Seto flipped through emails on his blackberry.

Jou huffed. He was not fidgeting. He might have been bouncing a little bit, and he might have been having trouble sitting still, but he was not fidgeting. Mokuba stood beside him, his posture was slumped so he looked like a brooding teenager, and Seto didn’t bother saying anything about that.

Jou was just uncomfortable being in the center of the room. His place for the last three years had been to find a wall with a good vantage point and stick to it until the world exploded, or to shove his way through a crowd. He wasn’t supposed to be in the middle of the room or anywhere near the middle of the crowd. It just felt wrong. The fact that he was about to meet the very people who had tried to kill him three times did not help his nerves settle. He glanced around the private room of the restaurant. The thin screens that divided their buffet-room from the rest of the restaurant were illuminated by bright halogen lights, making it impossible to see if there was a silhouette behind them. Roland assured him that his men had the restaurant well covered, but Jou didn’t see how that could be possible, considering the number of hiding places he had noticed since he walked in through the front door.

“You can sit down and order food,” said Seto, not glancing up at him.

“Not hungry,” Jou insisted. He glanced at Seto’s blackberry, trying to read the screen without the other man noticing. When Seto glanced sideways at him, he smiled. “You should get an iPhone. The software they’ve got is so much cooler.”

“Would you believe I’m locked into a service contract?”

“What?” Jou perked up a bit. “The big bad CEO isn’t willing to drop a couple hundred bucks to get out of a cell phone contract?”

Seto started to chuckle, seemed to catch himself, and schooled his face again. “It’s a commercial contract, Mutt. Kaiba Corp’s liquidated damages would be the full cost of the contract, not a couple of hundred bucks.”

“Full cost of the contract? For your whole company? Ouch.”

“Yes. Besides, if I actually need a new application, I can just write one. Or have a development team write one, if I’m feeling lazy.”

Jou felt stupid. Of course he could write his own. He wrote video games, the software for the Duel Disks, and the new dueling arenas. He could write a ping-pong game for a handheld in his sleep. “Right, right… World’s richest prick… I forgot.”

“Kaiba-sama,” Roland called from the door of the restaurant’s private room, “Your guests have arrived.”

“Thank you,” said Seto, with more calm that Jou thought anyone should be entitled to at a moment like this. Seto made a show of turning his blackberry off, handing it to his brother, and gracefully rising to his feet. He bowed slightly when three large, and strangely familiar men, strolled into the restaurant in expensive pinstriped suits. “Welcome, and thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”

The man in front was slender, with a business-like haircut and a weathered face with a single thin scar upon his right cheek. He bowed low at the waist. “It is my pleasure, Kaiba-sama. I understand from your brother’s request that there has been a miscommunication regarding little Jou.”

Jou glanced up at the sound of his name. Only one person in his life had ever called him little Jou, and even after all these years, Jou remembered the voice as well as he would his own father’s. Jou stared into the face of the man who had given him odd jobs as a child, desperately trying to keep his mouth shut and to keep any sign of recognition from making its way into his expression. Jou knew that he controlled the street gangs where Jou grew up. He controlled everything and everyone where Jou grew up. But Jou had never thought of Asano-san as a criminal, much less someone who would agree to kill him for money.

“Indeed there has been. Would you like to discuss it over tea?”

“Please.” Asano sat down at the small table with Seto. The men behind him took up stations at his side, opposite of Jou and Mokuba.

Seto waited patiently while a waitress served them tea, waited until she had bowed and backed out of the room, and then looked down at his teacup with a smile on his face. “I’m afraid this is somewhat embarrassing for me, Asano-san. I pride myself of very seldom making mistakes of this nature. Whatever agreement I’ve made with you regarding Jounouchi was a mistake, and I must retract it. I hope you will accept the consideration I’ve already paid as compensation for the burdens you’ve undertaken on my behalf.”

Jou paled. He was going to let Asano keep the money? 

“I am uncertain about the nature of this misunderstanding, Kaiba-sama. Your messenger gave explicit instructions regarding the matter.”

Jou noticed Kaiba’s hand twitch, but he continued without missing a beat. “My messenger acted against my wishes and had no authority to speak on my behalf. That fact does not absolve me of responsibility, and so you have my deepest apologies.”

Jou held his breath. It could not be that easy. It was never that easy.

At the table, the crime lord sipped his tea and spared Jou a single, sideways glance. “I accept, and extend my thanks, Kaiba-sama. I’m afraid we have both failed in properly restraining our subordinates in this case. I am ashamed to say that your offer would never have been accepted, if I had been consulted on the matter. When your secretary delivered the money to one of my associates, she found him at a delicate point in his career where he was struggling to fund enterprises of his own. The lure of money inspired him to turn his back on the very traditions we honor. Once an agreement was made, I was bound by honor to uphold it, despite my own wishes. Consider the agreement nullified.”

Jou had to admit that he was impressed. Not only was Seto politely controlling the situation, but he hadn’t even flinched when Asano-san mentioned Seto’s secretary. Jou wondered just how much of an effect he had on the brunette, to be able to get a rise out of him at all.

“Thank you,” Seto inclined his head in a small bow. “May I ask, Asano-san, when did my secretary deliver the money?”

“Four weeks ago, or very nearly. She explained that you had only just located him, after searching for years. I must say that surprised me. I have always kept a close eye on little Jou, so finding him was no trouble. He’s caused such a headache for our foreign associates that I have had to take quite drastic steps to ensure his protection over the years.”

“You knew his location? This whole time?” Seto asked, a hint of emotion entering his voice.

The old man smiled. “I wasn’t aware that the information was of value to you, Kaiba-sama. In his youth, Jounouchi’s father was a dear friend to me, so I have also taken great pains to see that little Jou was safe. It was hardly surprising that the boy would resume using his real name when he returned to America.” He set his teacup down and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a linen napkin. “Distressing as his career choices have been, I would be more distraught to hear of any harm befalling him in the future.” The threat wasn’t disguised, but it wasn’t advertised either. Mokuba could learn a lot from watching a man like Asano, Jou thought grimly.

“As would I. But, to avoid any miscommunications in the future, could you please inform all of your associates that no one is authorized to conduct business on my behalf.”

“Yes,” Asano smiled as he stood, “You do have a reputation for preferring a hands-on approach.”

“I’m glad we understand each other,” Seto smiled. He nodded as Asano-san bowed but he didn’t bother to stand up.

Seto sat quite still while he watched the old crime lord walk out of the restaurant with his entourage. He sat quite still as Roland paid their bill and the hostess returned to thank them for their patronage. He rose and walked out of the restaurant with all of the dignity and bearing that the Yakuza lord himself had possessed.

Out of habit, Jou rushed ahead of Seto and opened the limo door, ushering both Kaibas inside before following them in. He couldn’t read Seto’s expression, so he took a seat opposite the other man, just in case he decided to explode or try to strangle him. He tapped his feet and glanced at Mokuba, not sure what he was supposed to say or do. Mokuba was just as silent as his brother. The limo started and smoothly pulled away from the curb.

It wasn’t until they were a block from the restaurant that Seto finally snapped. At least, Jou was expecting him to snap. That was the only reason he flinched when the brunette leaned forward. Instead of shouting or reaching for his throat, Seto pulled out a thin laptop, turned it on, and sat back waiting for the system to boot.

“What are you doing?” asked Jou, confused.

“He’s updating Human Resources,” said Mokuba, without looking at either of them.

“What?”

“That should be fairly obvious, Mutt. I need a new secretary. I’m emailing Human Resources to let them know I’ll need a pool of candidates to interview from, and that they need to add Will not implicate boss in a homicide plot to the list of screening criteria.”

Jou chuckled for a moment, and then considered the expression of each of the Kaiba brothers. “You’re serious?”

“It’s become a long list,” Mokuba explained, chuckling.

“You’re not surprised? Or even angry? Don’t you want to know why she did it?” Jou asked.

“The only real surprise was learning that the head of the Domino Yakuza seems to consider himself your godfather,” Mokuba said, struggling not to laugh. “Little Jou.”

“And he knew where you were!” Seto agreed. “He knew where you were, what name you were using, that you’d pissed off a bunch of Mexican drug lords…. Why didn’t we go to the Yakuza years ago?”

“Because you didn’t want to sully our reputations by associating with criminals,” Mokuba reminded him. 

“They wouldn’t have told you. Everybody on my old street knew my birth name,” Jou pointed out. “They all I knew moved here from the States, and that I was likely to go to my grandpa’s when my dad died. They probably didn’t tell you because… well… you’re Seto Kaiba. You own half the city, everybody recognizes you, and everybody who followed Duel Monsters when we were competing knows you hated my guts and wanted to get rid of me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mutt. I only own six percent of the real estate in Domino, and most of it’s handled by my property management company.”

“You own enough of the city that you actually know the percentage…? You’re not really countering my argument here, Moneybags.”

Seto shook his head like a tired man trying to deal with a hyperactive three-year-old who won’t stop asking stupid questions. “I concede the point. But I’m not at all surprised about my secretary. Keade-san is number one hundred and fourteen. She lasted longer than most, but I have never been able to find a secretary who doesn’t develop some kind of demented fixation with me. They’ve threatened Mokuba, tried to frame me for embezzlement, had sex with me and sold the details to tabloids, one of them poisoned my dog, one tried to collect my urine by screwing with the toilet in my office. I never did find out why. Every single one of them turns out to be a psychopath who ends up trying to destroy my life.” Seto shook his head slowly. “Having an obsessed stalker is extremely frustrating.”

“Tell me about it,” Jou muttered darkly.

“It’s not stalking if the attention is wanted,” Seto insisted.

“You know Yugi offered to be your secretary,” said Mokuba innocently.

“And I’m starting to think I really should just take him up on his offer, but, really… studded leather, multi-colored hair, and porn don’t make for a very professional image. Plus, I’ve already walked in on you screwing a few of my secretaries—it’s not something I really want to do on a regular basis.”

“Fine, move on to number one hundred and fifteen. I’ll miss Kaede-san a bit.”

Seto stopped typing, his fingers hovered over the keyboard. He glared at his little brother.

“It was just a few times,” Mokuba said innocently. “It didn’t matter to me or her. She was still madly in love with you.”

“What are you going to do about her?” Jou asked.

Seto glanced at Mokuba for a moment, then focused on his laptop and began to type at a breakneck pace. In his seat by the window, Mokuba smiled. Jou had seen that smile a thousand times before, usually when Mokuba was cheering his brother on in a duel. It meant someone was about to get their ass kicked and didn’t have a clue about what fate had in store for them.

“You know, you’re both kind of scary sometimes.”

Mokuba’s smile widened. “Don’t worry, Jou, I’m not going to actually do anything illegal. But I’m going to need help for this one, Seto.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“First, get me details. Transaction numbers, dates, routing numbers. Then I’ll let you know.”

Seto stopped typing for a moment. “Let’s go visit Nakamura-san, then. She’s good at this sort of thing.”

The Nakamura home looked just as it had eight years before, except for what looked like a small bamboo forest poking up over the roof. The same ornamental junipers lined the front path, the same western-style pillars decorated the façade, and Jou was sure the same housekeeper answered the door, although she made no sign of recognizing him. She showed them to the front parlor and disappeared upstairs. A moment later Sakura came down with the same grace that Jou remembered from all those years ago. The subtle gray in her hair hadn’t aged her beauty or poise.

Her face lit up in a bright smile when she saw Jou. “Katsuya-kun! I was wondering when I’d get to see you! Welcome home!” She pulled Jou into a tight hug and then turned towards Seto. “Welcome Mokuba-kun, Kaiba-san. Do come back to the kitchen, I’ll make some coffee.”

“Oh, I’ve missed your coffee,” Jou said nostalgically. 

Jou started to follow her and hesitated when he saw that Seto hadn’t moved. 

He poked his elbow towards Seto’s ribs. “I… I’m sorry, I’d forgotten….”

“That Katsuya-kun spent two years saving me from domestic labor and being a lab rat for some failed culinary experiments?” she said with a smile. “I doubt that. You must be stressed. Come on, tell me about it over coffee.”

“I have a secretary problem, Sakura-san,” said Seto seriously. “Do you remember that transaction you wanted me to document?”

“You need my help to trace an expenditure that came out of your own office?”

“Yes,” said Seto, without a hint of embarrassment. “I think that three million dollars ended up being used to pay for an assassin to target Jounouchi.”

Sakura sighed dramatically and stared between the two of them, looking utterly disappointed. 

“I find it a little disheartening that you used to use that same look every time I’d would slip up and curse around you, Sakura-san,” Jou said, trying to lighten her mood.

“Yes, well, Seto’s vices have always found rather more spectacular ways to manifestation than yours, Katsuya-kun,” she explained. “But I reserve the right to be disappointed in either of you.” She glanced between Seto and Jou, concerned. “I trust you’ve put a stop to the assassination attempts?”

“I have, but now I need solid proof regarding who authorized the transaction. Who authorized it, whether it was cash or an electronic funds transfer, dates, locations, all of it. Unfortunately, I gave the information about the transaction to the person who’s most likely responsible for it.”

“I see. You have some nerve Seto. You show up, unannounced I might add, and tell you that you’ve nearly gotten my Katsuya-kun killed, and expect me to just had over a date and transaction number?” A sharply manicured nail poked Seto in the chest as she spoke.

Seto smirked. “Actually, I’m kind of worried about how long it will take me to track down enough facts to file a police report. I was hoping I might be able to ask you for help, but it looks like you’ve settled in for the evening.” Seto motioned down at her kimono.

“And trust you to deal with this in a way that befits my expectations? Hah. I can be dressed in five minutes. Katsuya-kun, would you mind making the coffee while I change? You know where everything is.”

“You got it, Sakura-san.”

“Thank you Katsuya.”

Jou wandered into the kitchen and found that absolutely nothing had changed there in the last eight years. She still bought the same brand of coffee and she still had a two-week-old quart of spoiled milk in the refrigerator. He set the kettle on the boil and found his way to the window. From the kitchen window, he could glance out into the back yard, and he stood on his tiptoes in order to see as much of it as he could. The raised flowerbeds were filled and professionally color-coordinated, the cherry tree he planted near the waterfall had grown to nearly twelve feet and was just beginning to bloom. Unfortunately, near the back of the garden, at the end of the path, what should have been a balance of bamboo, pine, and plum had mutated into a wild overgrowth of bamboo that towered over thirty feet, with a single pine and two sickly looking plum trees.

“Well, that sucks….” he said aloud.

“What sucks, Mutt?”

Jou was ashamed of how badly he flinched at hearing Seto’s voice right behind him. “Would you not sneak up behind me like that? Do you have any idea how paranoid I’ve become lately?”

“Get over it. What sucks?”

Jou pointed out into the yard. “Three friends in winter,” said Jou, as though that was supposed to be enough of an explanation. “It’s a Chinese symbol of strength and longevity. Bamboo and pine stay green throughout the winter, and that plum blooms in the winter, so they’re combined in gardens to symbolize prospering in adverse conditions.”

“Why does it suck?” Seto asked, staring out at the trees in the dim light of the setting sun.

“The bamboo has gotten completely out of control. It was just supposed to be in that one corner, as a backdrop to the plums and the pine tree. It wasn’t supposed to become an entire forest of bamboo and choke out the plum trees. It ruined the effect.”

The kettle whistled. Seto stared out the window while Jou pulled it off the burner and poured the boiling water over a coffee filter, stirring the grounds as the water seeped through.

“I never noticed that wasn’t how it was intended to look. But I can see what you had in mind, now that you explained.”

“Personally, I still can’t believe you did all of this while you were in high school,” Sakura said from the door. She was dressed in a clean pantsuit and ready to go. “It might have gotten a bit out of control, but I adore it.” She crossed the kitchen and took the cup of coffee from Jou. Jou handed her the lid to the travel mug without a word.

“It doesn’t count for much,” said Jou at last. “Kaiba built a multi-billion dollar gaming empire in high school. Yugi saved the world in high school. Hell, even Otogi managed to run a successful business in high school. Playing with dirt and mortar doesn’t seem all that great, compared to the stuff everybody else managed.”

“We were in an unusual class,” Seto insisted. “In the year after ours, the punk voted most likely to succeed never managed anything more impressive than a paper route.”

Sakura stared at Jou, her eyebrows raised. She mouthed the words “defending you?” Jou shook his head. “Well,” she said with resolve, “Let’s go sort how much damage this secretary has done, shall we?”

Sorting things out turned out to be the most boring thing that Jou had ever had to sit through. He knew that white collar crime investigations were boring, and that accounting was boring, but combining the two left Jou ready to start hitting his head against the wall just for something to do. Jou found himself stuck in a small office while Seto and Sakura spread out hours of work over a conference room table. They poured through hundreds of pages of account records, then hundreds of hardcopy pages of expense authorizations, then online bank records, too. After six hours of being cloistered in a conference room somewhere in the deepest bowels of the Kaiba Corp building, Jou caught himself chewing on his own fingernails eight times.

“Play a game,” Kaiba said sympathetically. Kaiba loaned him his blackberry to play with, but the only games the bastard had was solitaire.

He tried asking if they found anything, but Sakura didn’t even look up from her work to answer and Seto just glared at him. Eventually, he gave up on asking if they were making any progress. The only answer he got was when Seto said he was just becoming more confused than ever. Apparently, someone had done a bad job of forging his signature on the original documents, and the authorization code listed for each transaction in the accounting database was Seto’s. However, he said he did not remember signing those authorizations, and he wasn’t in the office the date that the electronic authorizations were made or the money was actually withdrawn. The money had been routed through several different banks, so the amounts would look like normal expenses and Seto wouldn’t notice.

“This is getting frustrating,” he complained. “I am going to find proof that I didn’t hire someone to kill you,” Seto insisted, pulling over a stack of account registers that he had already searched.

“I’m going to go find a magazine or something. This is do dull I think my brain is starting to turn to mush.”

Seto didn’t even look up as Jou left the room. He wandered downstairs into the lobby where rows of chairs were set against the large glass windows of the Kaiba Corp lobby. Tables covered in cheap, popular magazines were spaced between every set of three chairs. Jou grabbed a handful of current events magazines from the previous year and began to look for a vending machine. He found a soda machine near a bank of stainless-steel elevators.

Near the end of the bank of elevators, a bell chimed. Five men emerged from the elevator, talking in hushed voices. Jou stepped to the side of the soda machine, instinctively trying to make himself as invisible as possible. He did not want to have to explain what he was doing in the building. He intended to stand there until the men passed, but he was so surprised to see Honda in the center of the group that he inched his way out to followed them.

“If he is not in his office than he must be elsewhere in the building,” one of the men said with certainty. “Or he may have already gone on the run. He has always been so unpredictable. A man hunt may become necessary.”

“An arrest warrant will not be issued until I am convinced that a crime has actually been committed. Kaiba has a habit of hiring unstable secretaries, and I won’t arrest the most powerful businessman in Japan based on just her statement.”

“Of course, Detective, of course. As the current vice president of accounting, I alone have access to financial records from Kaiba’s office and special projects. I can show you the records I’ve found of various cash transactions that I believe went to fund this illicit conduct.” The leader stopped and shook his head dramatically. “Such a pity… At first, it seemed only natural that he attempt to find his friend, but over the years it’s become an obsession for him. It is unfortunate that things should come to this… and by misappropriating corporate funds, too.”

“Thank you, Hiroshi-san, but now that a formal investigation has been initiated, I will have to subpoena the records properly, so that a police department specialist may review them. I had a search warrant application approved after taking witness statements, and a forensics team is on the way, so we should be able to get started immediately. I suggest you return home and wait for us to contact you. Until this is resolved, Kaiba Corp will have to remain closed.”

“You can’t be serious, Detective. Kaiba’s conduct will run Kaiba Corp into the ground if someone isn’t here to step up to the helm! The company cannot shut down!”

From the slump of Honda’s shoulders, Jou could see that he was losing his patience. “Hiroshi-san, you were right to contact us when you learned about the matter, but now the process must run its course. If you interfere in any way, you may face charges for obstruction of justice.”

Hiroshi-san inflated with trembling indignation. “You dare to threaten me!”

Jou heard Honda snort. “I was advising you of the consequences of interfering with a police investigation. The consequences are the same for every citizen of Japan, Hiroshi-san, no matter what uniform they wear to work,” Honda’s head dipped towards the other man’s suit.

The man bristled but, to his credit, didn’t blow up. “I shall be taking this matter up with your superior, Detective. And I shall not fail to notify him of your refusal to file an arrest warrant when a murderer may be escaping from you at this very moment.

“Murderer?” Jou could hear the slight humor in Honda’s voice. “There is no evidence that a murder has been committed.”

“You have Keade-san’s testimony! When you find Jounouchi’s body, the only evidence that you will find will link his corpse to a paid assassin! The evidence you need can only be found in Kaiba’s accounts. He is getting away and you are here wasting time threatening me!”

“I am not prepared to arrest Kaiba Seto for murder based on nothing but hearsay,” Honda growled, “But if the only way to keep you out of my way is to arrest you, I’m prepared to do that right now. Would you like to go home this evening, or would you like accompany me back to the Domino Police Department?”

The man straightened, his head shook as though he it took all of his effort to repress his reply. He spun on his heels and stormed towards the lobby door, the other three men following close behind him. Jou watched Honda hold his ground as the men in suits left Kaiba Corp, then strolled around the corner towards him. Honda was half-way through dialing a number on his cell phone when Jou stepped up behind him. “Do you think big business turns everyone into assholes, or are assholes the only ones who make it to the top?”

Honda dropped his cell phone and spun around, his hand reaching for the pistol in his shoulder holster. He stopped when he saw Jou standing behind him. “Damn it, Jou! You, of all people, should know better than to sneak up on a cop!” Honda stared at him for a moment. “What are you doing here and why are you dressed like some kind of Yakuza enforcer?”

Jou shifted the magazines in his arm, fumbled with the bottle of Pepsi he’d bought, and looked down at his borrowed suit. “Mokuba and Yugi cornered me this morning and insisted on role playing, complete with kinky dress-up shit.”

The look of open-mouthed horror on Honda’s face was priceless. 

“No, not really,” Jou said quickly. “After six guys broke into Kaiba’s mansion this morning, Mokuba arrange a meeting with one of the local bosses so Seto could call them off.”

“Seto actually did hire them to kill you?”

Jou shook his head. “No. Long story. You’re right though, he has some major stupid moments.” Jou filled him in on the break in that morning, and the hastily scheduled meeting with Domino’s crime Lord that Mokuba organized afterwards. “Now I’m waiting for Seto and Sakura to dig through a month’s worth of accounts to find out who actually hired them.”

“Asano,” Honda muttered. “I remember him from when we were kids. He said the secretary brought the money?”

Jou nodded. “He did. I was right there in front of him when he said it.”

Honda sighed and ran his hands over his face, as though tying to wring all of the exhaustion out of his eyes. “And his secretary told us the same thing this afternoon. Jou, she said that Kaiba instructed her to call a number Mokuba gave him, to make a deal to have you found and killed—brutally killed—if the opportunity arose. She brought in evidence, Jou….”

“Kaiba said he didn’t know anything about it.” Jou felt his stomach clench. “What evidence?”

“Not evidence of an actual agreement with Asano, but records of contracts with private investigators to find you, records of assaults Kaiba committed against you when we were kids, records of a cash withdrawal that she says Kaiba told her to take to the Yakuza to pay them, along with his personal instructions on how he wanted you dealt with. She’s painted a pretty convincing picture of him as an obsessed psychopath who’s stalked you since he was sixteen….”

Jou stared at his friend. Honda knew very well that he and Kaiba had fought during high school. Jou himself had told him about Kaiba arranging his class schedule to watch him, showing up at the arcade whenever Jou did, and cornering him in the library.

“Jou, she said that Kaiba wanted to scare you into coming back, to put you in a position where you had to rely on him for protection. Or to kill you if you wouldn’t come back. As soon as Kaiba showed up at the police station three days ago, someone shot you. Have you stopped to consider that it might not be a coincidence that Kaiba was there? Or that you were just shot in the arm and not killed? I hate to say it, Jou, but I’ve heard Kaiba himself swear that he would drag you home even if he had to bring you back in pieces. I thought he was just being Kaiba at the time, but after everything you told me when you came back… Jou, have you considered that Kaiba might be manipulating you?”

Jou stared at him for a moment. He hadn’t had enough time to take a sit and think about things. Kaiba had stalked him, and he had never been the most stable guy in the world. But would he actually try to kill Jou to force him to come back? He hadn’t acted surprised when Asano-sama had told him that his secretary paid them, and he had been safe from the moment he stepped off the plane in Domino until Kaiba found him at the police station. If the bastard really wanted to scare Jou into coming back, why would he tell Jou about it? That morning he had confessed to being the one responsible for the contract on Jou’s life, although he claimed to be an unwitting participant, and he’d been dragging Jou around Domino ever since trying to fix it. Was it all just a con? Just a game to make Jou run home with his tail between his legs so Seto could save the day?

“His secretary is convinced the hit was successful,” said Honda. “She came into the police station with those four goons to turn Kaiba in for murder.”

Jou chewed on his bottom lip, thinking about all of the crazy shit Kaiba had ever done. Somewhere in the back of his head, he had considered that it might all be a con. He hadn’t been surprised to find out that the felony charges were just a ploy to get him to come back to Domino, so was it really that unthinkable for Seto to create a threat to his life that he had to stay in Domino to deal with?

“I’m not dead,” Jou reminded him.

“Because he wants you frightened, not dead. What she said makes a lot of sense, Jou.”

Jou glanced at the glass lobby doors. “She came in with those four? You didn’t notice that they seem to have Big Five written all over them?”

Honda shrugged. “You said it yourself, they’re all assholes.”

“And what would they gain if Kaiba was arrested for murder?”

“And misappropriation of funds,” Honda added. “I’m not sure who would gain what from it, to be honest. I don’t think that Kaiba or his brother would lose their stock, but they wouldn’t be able to exercise any control over the company while they’re in jail. Control of Kaiba Corp is on the line.”

“They’re both implicated? Kaiba and Mokuba?”

“Yes,” Honda hissed. “She said that Mokuba was the one who set everything up. So, the board of directors would have to elect a new CEO. I don’t know enough about all of them to suggest who that would be, but that Hiroshi guy seemed pretty convinced that it would be him.”

Jou thought about how easily he had Seto had fallen back into old patterns, how readily he’d slipped right back into the way things were. The only difference was that now Seto was being openly affectionate, and he wasn’t even insulting him that much. Was it all one of Seto’s games?

“Jou, I really think you need to get out of Kaiba’s place, at least. You’re welcome to stay at my place, or get a hotel, but you need to get away from him.”

“You know,” Jou said wistfully, “I don’t think I do. I know it’s not smart, but I trust him. Seto doesn’t lie to me, not about stuff like that. He is a manipulative bastard, but I want to have faith in him. And if he wanted me dead, he’s had plenty of chances to do it himself when we’ve been alone. Besides, if he wanted me dead, he wouldn’t send someone else. Seto likes to deal with his enemies head on. He’s never been one to hide behind hired thugs or bodyguards. I know him, Honda. I believe in him.”

Honda shook his head. “I know him, too, Jou. Do something for me. If you’re convinced he isn’t trying to manipulate you, leave Domino. Try to leave, anyway. If you’re running for your life again within the hour, well, then you’ll know.”

Jou considered his words. “It’s late. I’m tired. Are you going to arrest Seto, or wait and see what an investigative team digs up? Because if you’re going to arrest him and Mokuba than that means I’ve got to call a cab.”

“You really do trust him, don’t you?”

“Yup. Stupid, I know, but that’s just the way it is.”

“I need to talk to him, but I doubt I’ll be placing him under arrest. If Seto Kaiba wanted to hire a hit man to kill someone, he would never be stupid enough to leave a paper trail. In fact, it there was a paper trail, I’d be suspicious of that! That was how we tracked down an embezzlement scheme here a few years ago. Every piece of paper pointed straight to Kaiba, and that was just too obvious for him.”

Jou dropped the magazines in his hand. “Get suspicious, then. From what I’ve heard from Seto and Sakura, you’re going to find the same damn thing this time.”

“We’ll look at everything Jou, you have my word on that. And that’d be the calvary,” Honda announced as a stream of people in police uniforms and suits flooded into the nighttime office, carrying toolboxes, cameras, and laptops.

“Hiroto!” a large man in a suit shouted, “Who the hell is this?”

“This is the alleged murder victim, Captain,” Honda said with a smirk.

“You’re Jounouchi Katsuya?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look dead.”

Jou stared at him for a moment, not really sure if he had just heard the man correctly. He fumbled with his magazines again and reached up o his own neck, setting two fingers against his skin until he felt his pulse. “Definitely not dead,” he said, smirking.

“Hiroto, I thought you said this was a homicide investigation?”

“It’s possible Kaiba’s secretary may have misled us, or just seriously misunderstood the situation,” Honda said simply. “His board of directors seems convinced he’s committed conspiracy, if nothing else. I have a feeling any evidence we find here is going to be suspect, though, either because Kaiba’s covered his tracks or because his board of directors is nothing but a bunch of old scheming bastards who have had access to all of the so called evidence for weeks before they called us.”

“This is another secretary case, isn’t it? Shit. Well, let’s get this over with before Jounouchi here does end up dead. I hate these secretary cases,” the large man sighed. “I hate thinking about what the last woman did to that poor dog….”

Jou couldn’t keep his eyes from bulging. “You mean Seto was telling the truth about that?”

“What a relief, the professionals are here!” Seto’s voice came from the direction of the elevators. “I’m at my wits end trying to dig through hard copy! Since I didn’t call you, can I assume you have a search warrant?”

Honda passed him a folded photocopy.

Seto read it attentively, never once looking surprised. When he was done, he carefully folded the paper and passed it back. “What a headache… Detective Hiroto, would you like me to stay and answer questions tonight, or shall we make an appointment for some time tomorrow?”

“Go home, Kaiba. I have to execute that warrant and you’ll just worm your way into my search if you stay.”

“If you insist. Let me guess what’s happened, though? My secretary showed up, at the urging of at least one and probably four members of my board of directors and confessed to her role in a murder conspiracy that I allegedly instigated. The target was a young runaway I am well known for being pre-occupied with?”

“Something like that.”

“And now they’re demanding my immediate imprisonment, claiming that I’m so dangerous that to wait until I’m convicted would endanger all of Japanese society and lead to the ruin of the free world?”

“Are you that dangerous, Kaiba?”

“I make toys and children’s games for a living, Detective. I build theme parks and arcades. When has a card game ever been dangerous?”

Honda crossed his arms and glared at Seto, who just grinned. 

“In the meantime, Detective Hiroto, I would never dream of impeding one of our cities finest in the execution of their duty. I shall inform my staff that they are to make themselves available to assist you in accessing any areas of the building or any electronic information you might require. Good evening.”

Honda nodded.

“Oh, but a senior member of the board of directors is in accounting at the moment, trying to track down who forged my authorization code on the transactions you’ll be looking for. She wanted to stay and check a few more things before she left for the evening. It’s passed midnight, she’s an old woman, and she’s Jounouchi’s foster mother, so please don’t detain her any longer than you have to.”

“What?” Honda asked, turning his glare on Jou.

“Only because she had no moral qualms about throwing money around to cut through DFS red tape,” Jou insisted. “I owe her and her husband more than I can ever say. Be respectful?”

“Your foster-mom?”

“Yeah. Nakamura Sakura.”

“Come on, Mutt, it is late.” Seto strolled through the crowd of police officers, not bothering to look back and see if Jou was following him. Jou lingered for a minute and waved goodbye. Honda caught his gaze for a moment and nodded, a silent promise that he would make sure everyone was polite. 

Seto’s limo was double-parked right by the front door. Roland stood beside the open back door, waiting for him. “Where’d Mokuba disappear to?” he asked. He glanced up and down the street, the deserted sidewalks and the dirty yellow light flittering down from the streetlights made Jou feel nervous.

“I drove Master Mokuba home two hours ago. He stated that he needed a drink and that, while he is very fond of you, he’s not fond enough to did through all of the records from accounting.”

“Lucky little bastard,” Jou muttered as he climbed into the back of the limo. As the door closed, he sat down next to Kaiba and tried not to look at him. He glanced up towards the front of the car. He just hand time to notice that the black privacy screen was up before the dome light turned off.

“Hey, Kaiba, listen—"

Jou felt himself being tugged forward by his collar and thrown unceremoniously onto the floor of the limo. The other man was on top of him instantly, smashing his lips against Jou’s and forcing Jou’s mouth open with his tongue. Jou felt Seto’s fingers grab chunks of his hair, pulled his head back and tilted his chin up. Jou nearly screamed when Seto’s lips, tongue, and teeth worked their way over his jaw and down his neck.

“Don’t you realize that they might arrest you tomorrow?” Jou tried.

Seto’s growled at him and nibbled his way down Jou’s neck. “It’s after midnight, Mutt. Do you know what that means?”

“Hu?”

“It means,” Seto pulled his hair back again, “You’ve officially had two days to rest. Now shut up for once.”

Jou shifted his hips, preparing to throw Seto off him, to voice a dozen arguments about why this couldn’t happen. They’d both been through a hell of a day and things threatened to be worse tomorrow. Jou was safe and the warrant was cleared, so he would have to book a ticket home tomorrow. He and Mario would have to go back to work. He had a company to run, employees to take care of, and clients to protect. Kaiba was an obsessed stalker who might accidentally try to kill Jou if he encouraged him.

Then Kaiba’s teeth scraped the skin over his collarbone. Jou’s world narrowed to a single, focused point of sensation and all of his reasons and concerns evaporated. He ground his hips up, rubbing his cloth covered erection against Kaiba’s body. In that moment the only thing that mattered was that there was no one else in the world who could make him feel as intense as Seto Kaiba.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains potential non-con elements. After editing it, I decided that I had to leave it true to the original AFF version, because it feels right with the relationship dynamic between Seto and Jou.

Chapter 16

Jou was only vaguely aware of the motion of the limo around them. Seto’s lips latched on to the skin above his collarbone and one of his hands worked its way into Jou’s waistband. Seto wrapped his fingertips around the head of Jou’s cock and stroked the sensitive skin hard. When Jou began to squirm, Seto wrapped his fingers around him in a tight fist, squeezing him mercilessly.

“Seto!” Jou cried. “Seto we just passed through your gate! We’ve got to get up!”

Seto growled again and shoved his hand deeper into Jou,s pants, stroking him from the base of his cock to its tip.

The limo pulled to a stop and Jou heard the sound of a garage door opening. Seto stroked him once more, then shoved himself off of Jou and returned to his seat. He grabbed Jou by the collar and pulled him into the seat next to him. “This is not over,” Seto whispered in his ear.

A moment later the engine died and Roland opened the door. Seto climbed out without looking at his bodyguard, yanking Jou along behind him. Seto stormed through a gigantic gourmet kitchen, passed an island where Mario, Mokuba, and Yugi sat playing cards amid a dozen empty sake bottles. Jou tried to stop and say hi at least, but Seto shifted his grip from Jou’s arm to his shoulder and dragged him away towards the stairs. No one in the kitchen made any movement to rescue him.

Jou tripped as he tried to keep up with Seto on the stairs but Seto didn’t bother slowing down. He flung Jou into his bedroom and stormed in after him. Jou regained his footing and looked up as Seto closed the door behind him and locked it.

“Seto, I really think we should talk… You know I can’t stay with you. I’ve got a business to run, I’ve got to go back eventually.”

“You think I don’t know that!” Seto shouted, charging towards him. He grabbed Jou around his neck and pushed him backwards. When Jou’s knees buckled as he hit the edge of the bed, Seto crawled over him, forcing Jou to scoot back further. Seto held his head steady and kissed him, sucking Jou’s bottom lip into his mouth painfully. Jou couldn’t help the way he brought his hands up, trying to pull Seto’s fingers away from his neck. Seto tightened his grip. Jou bucked and twisted, trying to throw Seto off. He took as deep a breath as he could, trying to stop the panic rising in him. Was Seto actually trying to kill him? He focused all of his strength on trying to loosen one of Seto’s arms. His left arm burned with the effort, but he managed to push Seto’s weak arm up over their heads. 

Seto smirked into their kiss.

“What?” Jou demanded.

Seto moved so fast than Jou didn’t have a chance to pull his hands away. He felt the slap of steel on his right wrist and heard the familiar ring of a handcuff being closed. Jou pulled against the cuff but could hardly move more than an inch. His left arm was so weak that Seto had no trouble forcing it into a second handcuff.

“Seto, what the hell are you doing?”

“I would think that’d be obvious, Mutt,” Seto chuckled. “I’m chaining you to my bed.”

“Seto, unlock these damn things!” Jou pulled against the handcuffs. Seto hadn’t tightened them enough, and Jou was pretty sure he could slip his hand loose if he had to. “Let me go!”

“No,” Seto glared down at him. “You’re leaving. You’re going to go back to America and screw that big oaf for the rest of your life, and I know I can’t stop you. But I am not going to let you go without at least giving you a better memory for comparison than that one time eight years ago. I am going to fuck you so thoroughly that you’ll never be able to sleep with anyone else without comparing them to me.” Seto climbed off of him and wandered over to a small writing desk set against a dark window. He returned a moment later with a pair of scissors.

“Seto, you don’t—"

“Shut up. Or would you like me to gag you?”

Jou shook his head. “You don’t need the handcuffs! I…. Gods, you know I want this just as bad as you do!”

“The handcuffs aren’t for me.” Seto carefully cut away the sleeves of Jou’s suit and then his shirt. 

When Seto had shredded most of Jou’s clothes and pulled the fabric away, he tossed the scissors aside and ran his fingers down Jou’s bare chest.

“I spent years learning what things make you sick, what things make you scream, and what things make you so hard you can’t stop moaning. Being held down drives you wild, it always has. I had to figure out some way to keep you down without tying my hands up at the same time. Since you were a cop, handcuffs were the natural choice.” Seto scooted down and removed Jou’s shoes, then his pants and boxers. As he pulled Jou’s boxers down over his hips, revealing just how hard Jou was, he smirked in triumph. “You’re practically ready to cum right now and I haven’t even touched you yet.”

“Gods, wait, Seto!” Jou cried.

“Wait?” Seto laughed. “I haven’t even gotten started yet, Mutt.” Seto rose to his feet and shed his own clothing quickly. He climbed over the bed and straddled Jou’s legs, bending down and taking Jou’s cock in his mouth without warning.

“Seto!” Jou wanted to demand that he stop, but all he could do was buck his hips, desperate to feel more of Seto’s wet mouth around him. Seto’s tongue swirled over the head of his cock before Seto swallowed him, taking him so deep that Jou could feel Seto’s lips moving against his the base of his sac. Jou arched his back. He clenched his hands into fists and pulled against the handcuffs, torn between feeling trapped, helpless, and incredible all at the same time. He tried to keep his mouth shut, not to give Seto the satisfaction of hearing him scream, but as Seto coaxed him to an almost instant orgasm, he couldn’t control himself. “Of fuck! Seto!” Jou raised his head and stared down at the other man, mesmerized by how Seto increased the suction when Jou began to cum, pulling every drop he could out of Jou’s cock. By the time Seto slowly worked his way back to the tip, it had been sucked clean.

Seto nuzzled his cheek against Jou’s hip and let out a contented chuckle. “I’ve missed the way you moan.”

As Jou came back to himself his noticed that Seto hadn’t moved. At least, he hadn’t moved his body. Jou felt a slight pressure as Seto shoved a finger inside of him, followed almost immediately by another. Jou shifted uncomfortably, trying to raise his knees so he could push Seto away with his feet. Seto shook his head and chuckled. “I can tie up your feet, if you don’t behave yourself.”

“Seto,” Jou huffed, surprised that he hadn’t caught his breath from Seto draining him. “This isn’t funny,” he tried to bring conviction into his voice. “I can throw you off of me with my legs before you could tie me up, so you might as well just give this up. Let me out of these cuffs.”

Seto chuckled, pulled his fingers out of Jou’s ass, and slipped off of the bed. “I know you could. But you won’t.” He retrieved what looked like a scarf from the side of the bed, tied a slipknot around Jou’s foot, and used the scarf to pull Jou’s leg up. Jou assumed he was going to be tied spread eagle. He started to panic when Seto climbed on the bed near the headboard and pulled Jou’s foot up towards his hand.

“No! No, stop! Do you have any idea how right that it going to be! If I tear a hamstring because of you I’m going to kick your ass!”

Seto leaned close to Jou’s ear. “Ease into it. I’ve seen how flexible you are, Mutt. You showed off that ass of yours the first day you were here, when you bent to catch that vase.”

“Shit….” Jou swallowed hard.

Seto looped the scarf through his headboard and knotted it, then strolled around to the other side of the bed. He pulled Jou’s other foot up by the ankle and tied it in place with another slipknot. Seto climbed on the bed again, centering himself above Jou and staring down at the picture he’d made. Jou squirmed and tried to turn over, but the restraints on his legs got in the way of his hands. He just ended up folded in half on his side.

“Oh,” Seto sounded disappointed, “I liked you where you were. With you ass, your balls, and your cock held right up in the air for me to play with. I could get off just staring at you like that.” Seto rulled Jou onto his back and raked his fingernails along the bottom of Jou’s thighs. To Jou’s shame, the pain from the handcuffs and the sting from Seto’s nails seemed to travel through his body and straight to his cock, making it spring to life again. Seto bent down and licked Jou’s hardening cock again, coaxing it back to a full erection. When Jou was hard again, Jou felt Seto’s tongue works its way back.

Jou held his breath as something wet and strong worked its way inside him, twirling around the sensitive skin of his opening. “Oh fuck,” Jou hissed, trying to lift his hips to get away from the tickling sensation.

“Already? You are impatient, aren’t you.” Seto shoved three fingers into Jou’s ass, stretching him painfully. “Are you this much of a little slut for your bodyguard? Do you beg him to fuck you like this?” Seto forced in another finger, widening his fingers to stretch Jou further. “You’re awfully tight, though. Do you pound that tight little ass of his, instead? I admit, that would be amazing to see.”

Seto withdrew his fingers and lined himself up with Jou’s opening, squeezing his thighs hard enough to leave red marks where his fingertips dug into Jou’s skin. Jou braced himself as Seto thrust inside of him, fast and hard. Jou gasped as he was completely filled in a single thrust. It hurt more than the last time he’d had sex, probably because Seto hadn’t bothered with lube. He also didn’t bother waiting for Jou to adjust to his girth. He shifted his hands to Jou’s ankles and pushed Jou’s legs back so his feet were nearly behind his head. It didn’t seem possible, but Seto seemed to grow an inch longer as he reached deeper and deeper inside of him.

Seto pulled out until just the tip of his cock was inside of Jou, then rammed back in, just as deep and just as hard.

Seto sat still until Jou opened his eyes. When Jou met his gaze, Seto sneered. “Do you have any idea how much I hate the way he looks at you? The way you look at him?”

Seto began to thrust in and out quickly, driving into him so hard that his skin slapped against Jou’s ass every time. Jou tried not to shut his eyes with every thrust, but each burst of pain also brought that blinding pleasure of having Seto ramming into his prostate, and Jou couldn’t help the pleasure that overtook him.

Seto increased his pace again, growling with each thrust. “Do you know hw much I hate you?” Jou heard Seto whisper from above him.

Seto was breathing hard, but he kept up his painful pace. “I….” he panted, “hate… everything... about… you….” He squeezed Jou’s ankles harder. “The way you smile…. The way your eyes burn when you’re determined…. The way you always stood by your idiot friends, loyal to the bitter end…. The way you always stay optimistic…. The way you never became some emo twerp…. I even hate the way you slouch….”

Seto’s pace slowed slightly and Jou opened his eyes as the burning mix of pain and pleasure shifted. The pain began to fade completely. 

“I hate fact that you’re the only one is the world who laughs at my jokes… I hate that I can’t get you out of my head… That I’ve never stopped wanting you....”

Seto shifted the angle of his hips and to roll his hips into Jou, hitting his prostate with every tiny motion. “Seto!” Jou moaned, pressing back against him. When Jou’s cock twitched, spurting his second load across his chest, the smirk on Seto’s face hardened. He rose onto his knees and thrust straight down into Jou, harder and faster than he had before, until he came with a shudder. He stayed inside of Jou and Jou felt himself expand as Seto’s warm semen poured into him.

Seto collapsed on Jou’s legs, trying to catch his breath. When Jou felt the moisture on Kaiba’s cheeks he lifted his head, trying to read something in the other man’s expression. Seto met his gaze. “Most of all,” he whispered. “I hate the fact that if I ever say anything else, anything except ‘I hate you,’ you’re going to run away from me again.”

Jou’s heart felt like it was going to stop at the sight of Seto’s tears. In Seto’s eyes he saw a lifetime of love and silent agony reflected back at him. He saw a need so desperate that it made Jou feel like crying.

“Seto,” Jou said calmly, “Untie me.”

“No!” Seto insisted. “You’ve had eight years to run away from me! You have a lifetime to do it again, but not tonight! I am taking one night! Close your eyes and pretend that I’m your fucking bodyguard if you have to, but I am not letting you run away from me tonight!” More tears found their way into Seto’s eyes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jou whispered. “Seto, it’s alright. I’m not going to run away. Eight years ago, I would have bolted like a spooked cat if you had ever said anything except I hate you, you’re right. I was afraid. Afraid of you, of being gay, of never being anything except your….”

“Except my whore,” Seto spit out the words. “It comes back to that same, stupid mistake, then?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Jou insisted. “I’m not afraid anymore, Seto. I’ve had a long time to accept who I am. I don’t care if you can never say it, Seto, I can. I love you. I always have. And for the record, you don’t need to worry about ruining me for future lovers. No one has ever been able to compare to the first time. And until tonight, I don’t think I knew what mind-blowing sex really was. I… Ah, fuck it.”

Jou hissed in pain and pulled on his right arm. A thin film of sweat had formed on his skin, making it just slippery enough the force his hand out of the cuff. He untied his legs and grabbed the cuff around his left hand, inching it off over his skin. The left cuff was ratcheted down more than the right and Jou felt the skin scrape at the side side of his hand and over his thumb as he slipped free. Careful not to move his hips, Jou wrapped his arms and legs around Seto, pulling him close. Jou kissed him softly, kissing his lips and cheeks until the tears were gone. Seto held his cheeks and kissed him back. 

Jou could feel Seto trembling on top of him. “Are you fucking with me?” Seto asked, his voice dripping with fear.

Jou stared down at their hips where Seto’s cock was still buried inside of him. “You know that might not have been the most logical way to phrase that question, right?” Seto ground his teeth together so hard that Jou could hear it. “Just sayin’… But, no I’m not fucking with you. I love you.”

“You’ll stay with me?” Seto breathed desperately. “Even if they arrest me tomorrow?”

“If Seto Kaiba can’t get away with attempted murder, who can? But,” Jou touched his nose to Seto’s, “there are some issues that have to be worked out first,” Jou assured him. “I have responsibilities in LA. Employees, clients, a big insurance investigation to go through... And I’m not a Japanese citizen. I gave up my dual citizenship when I turned eighteen and went back to the states. It will take a bit of time. Of course, if you want to help, it might take less.”

Seto’s mouth moved, but he didn’t manage to utter a word. 

“I love you,” Jou said again.

When Seto kissed him again, he wrapped his arms around Jou’s shoulders, holding his body tight against his. When he finally broke the kiss, Seto pulled himself out of Jou and sat up on his knees. “Jou, I….”

“You don’t have to, Seto. It’s okay.”

“No it is not!” Seto folded his arms angrily. “Do you know how much I wanted to before? How many times I tried? How many times I opened my mouth to say something and nothing but an insult came out?”

Jou smiled at him and nodded. “Every time. You weren’t all that hard to read. Every time I said I hated you, back then, I meant the same thing you did.”

Seto smirked. “I do love you, Mutt. I tried to tell you, every time….” The smirk faded and was quickly replaced by a look of concern. “Are you alright? Did I hurt you?”

“I hurt me,” Jou tired to hold up his left hand, but with his strained and torn muscles, all he managed to do was raise it an inch off of the mattress. “About the handcuffs….”

“I really thought you’d like them,” said Seto. “But if they don’t add to the experience for you, we’ll forget the idea.”

Jou looked away as he blushed furiously. “I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would,” he admitted. “But do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Next time, make sure you double-lock the cuffs. The double lock is a little button on the back, you can hit it with the pointy end of the cuff key or with a pen. It keeps them from over tightening every time the single bar touches something.”

“But you slipped out of them.”

Jou rubbed his hand around the torn skin. “Yeah, I did. Wrong brand. These are Peerless, they run big. I’ve got a pair of Smith & Wesson hinged cuffs that would probably fit both of us, if you want to experiment a little.”

Seto stared at him, smiling.

“You don’t think you’d enjoy it?” Jou asked seriously.

Seto shrugged. “I enjoy anything that turns you on. I was thinking, though, if you want to experiment a little, we can always ask Yugi to recommend some toys. He knows more about anal toys than he does about Egyptology.”

Jou cringed at the thought. “Ew! Of all the things I’ve dealt with in the past three weeks, the one thing I really can’t deal with is any mention of Yugi and sex in the same sentence. That is just wrong! He still looks twelve!”

Seto laughed and collapsed beside him. He caressed the skin around the tiny bandage on Jou’s upper arm. “Sorry,” Seto said gently. “Are you okay?”

“It’s not bleeding. It still itches like mad, so the stitches are probably still fine.”

Seto glared at him and gently peeled back the adhesive tape. The stitches and butterfly tape were still perfectly fine. The skin under the adhesive tape was red and covered in bumps. “This was supposed to be latex free.”

Jou shrugged. “The tape doesn’t have latex in it, the adhesive does. It’s actually really hard to take care of cuts and shit. If something absolutely needs a bandage I just have to put up with the rash.”

“I’ll buy you something that doesn’t have latex in the adhesive,” Seto said automatically.

“You think I put up with it because I’m too cheap to buy hypoallergenic stuff?”

“No,” said Seto said quickly. “I just thought….”

“I am not too cheap. I’m too lazy. That and I really haven’t had time to find a drug store.”

Seto began to trace his fingers up and down over the muscles in Jou’s arm.  
Are you going to throw a tantrum every time I offer to do something nice for you?”

“Maybe. I don’t need or want you to take care of me. That’s got to be one of our ground rules from the start. I just want to be with you.”

“That’s going to be difficult for me. I’m accustomed to taking care of everyone.” Seto sat back up and shifted so he could trace the contour of Jou’s chest and hips. 

“Maybe you need someone to take care of you, then?” Jou suggested.

“If you’re not hurt, do you think you might be up for another round.”

Jou rubbed his wrists and carefully considered how sore he was likely to be tomorrow. “I might have a bit of energy left,” said Jou carefully. “And after all those hints about wanting to go at it doggy style, I’ve been a bit disappointed.”

Jou was impressed by how quickly Seto rallied. With a few firm strokes Seto was hard again. He grabbed a small tube of lube from his night stand a slicked himself and Jou’s entrance thoroughly. He took Jou by the hips and turned him over, pulling his ass up in the air and caressing his back. Seto didn’t bother preparing him this time, sliding inside of him with a tight friction that made Jou throw his head back to cope with the overwhelming sensations inside of him. When Seto’s fingers closed around his cock, Jou felt his erection stirring to life again. This time, Seto drew things out, rocking his hips in a languid rhythm that sent them both climbing higher and higher towards an intense release that left both of them collapsed in a heap of sweaty and exhausted flesh.

Seto kissed his shoulder and wrapped his arms around Jou’s chest. “I suppose handcuffs might not have been comfortable through that anyway….”

Jou moaned and tilted his head so he could smile at Seto. “Damn. I’ve never enjoyed slow sex before….”

Seto hummed and snuggled against his chest, preparing to fall asleep with his limp cock still partially inside of Jou.

“Seto, get off me. We need to go shower.”

Seto growled at him and snuggled more insistently.

“If Honda shows up at your door with an arrest warrant in two hours, do you really want to go to jail without getting cleaned up?”

Seto huffed but eventually climbed to his feet. He held out his hand and helped Jou out of bed. He didn’t let go of Jou when he got to his feet, though, but dragged Jou to the bathroom within him. He stopped Jou at the door. Jou glanced up at him, surprised that the same critical, icy look Seto always had was back in place. “When are you going to break things off with your bodyguard?”

“There’s nothing to break off,” Jou patted him on the shoulder and shoved him through the bathroom door. “He doesn’t mix business and pleasure. We gave it a shot before we started working together and it didn’t work out.”

“Didn’t work out?”

Jou shrugged and smiled innocently. “He wants long-term, committed, and vanilla.”

“Vanilla?”

“An American word for no kinky sex. The only time I ever got hard with him was when things got rough. Rough isn’t his thing.”

“So all of those comments and looks?”

“He’s a good friend. When I told him about us, he decided to tag along so I had someone to throw up as a smoke screen if you and I… if things went bad. That and someone was trying to kill me. It’s kind of nice to have an extra set of eyes.”

“Have you fucked him?”

“No,” said Jou, completely open. “But I wasn’t totally opposed to seeing if you would get jealous.”

Seto’s expression softened into a smile. He pulled Jou into the bathroom and shut the door behind them.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the original, this chapter is one where things kind of went off the rails. It's been years and, at this point, it was hard to re-read it without cringing, so I toned things down a smidge.

Chapter 17

Jou pulled the nearest pillow over his head when someone knocked on the door. As his hand brushed cold metal, he peeked out for a moment. The closed handcuffs were still looped though Seto’s ornamental headboard. He stared at them for a moment, reliving every detail of their marathon of activity the night before. Then he covered his head again. It was too damn bright. Some idiot had thrown open the curtains and Seto’s wall-sized windows let in enough sunlight make Jou want to curse.

“Fucking western rip-off luxury homes,” Jou grumbled. The old Japanese style compounds, with high, small windows covered with screens, were so much more comfortable in the morning. Jou reached out to the side of the bed where Seto had fallen asleep earlier that morning. He sighed as his hand brushed an empty pillow and a rough-textured paper.

Jou poked his head out of his cocoon again and found a sealed envelope on the pillow next to him. 

“Wonder how much last night was worth….” Jou mused aloud. He tore open the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of custom stationary.

‘Do not over-analyze this, Mutt. It’s just a note to let you know I got up to go check a few logs I forgot about. If there are implications in this note that I’m not aware of, I’ll expect a memo outlining how those implications would be interpreted by the lower classes so I can fix it. Do not run away again. Love, Seto.’

Signed and on his personal stationary, Jou thought whimsically. Seto had to be totally committed to the idea if he was willing to provide Jou with physical evidence as fodder to black mail him. Jou wouldn’t black mail him, of course, but the idea that Seto trusted him enough to risk it brought a huge smile to his face. After enjoying the glow that thought brought him, Jou climbed out of bed and tried to find what was left of his clothing from last night. His pants and boxers were still in one piece, but everything else was shredded. He dug through an ancient chest of drawers hoping to find a T-shirt he could borrow to sneak back to his guestroom, but all Seto had were wife-beater style white under shirts, along with enough black socks and underwear to keep half-dozen men in clean clothes for weeks.

Jou grabbed one of the tank tops and was nearly reduced to tears by how much he had to squirm to squeeze into it. Seto may be taller than him, but Jou had never really appreciated just how much broader he was. Jou couldn’t remember actually seeing the brunette eat or drink anything besides coffee in the last week, and his job wasn’t the most active one in the world, so Jou knew he shouldn’t have been surprised that Seto was skinny. As soon as he was mostly covered, Jou headed for the door and found that it was locked. He looked for the lock on the handle and found nothing but smooth metal. He couldn’t push the door in and it didn’t have any separate locking mechanism that could be accessed from the inside. Jou sat down in front of the door, staring at the innocent looking wood. He thought back over his adventures in the house control center yesterday, and then jumped to his feet, feeling stupid. He found the scraps of undershirt that Kaiba had cut off of him last night and carefully removed the pin that transmitted his access code for the motion sensors. Would it work for the door lock as well? If Jou had designed it, it would have. He walked towards the door with the pin in hand and chuckled when he heard the lock disengage. He wondered if it would get him into Seto’s office, too.

He headed towards his guestroom and noticed that this door unlocked from roughly three feet away. Jou wasn’t surprised to see that his entire room was in disarray. His suitcase was open on the bed and his things were scattered around the comforter. Empty drawers were pulled open, the closet door was ajar, and the bathroom door was open. Jou hadn’t been in the room since yesterday morning, and the Domino PD bomb squad had been through the room with dogs and hand-held metal detectors since then. In their defense, Jou knew that it was actually quite difficult to search a room without messing it up, but it was still annoying. He put on his last pair of jeans and an old Duel Monsters t-shirt, carefully pinned the transmitter to the collar, and headed down stairs.

Jou went straight to the house’s control center, letting himself in through the small door. He found Roland sitting alone at the console.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wheeler,” the bodyguard said without looking up.

“Hi. Anything happening this morning?”

“This morning ended four hours ago, Mr. Wheeler. Mr. Kaiba has already been through an extensive interview with local police, spoken at a press conference, exploited the news coverage to promote his new role-playing game and returned home for a second, informal discussion with the police. They are in the game room. They requested I ask you to join them when you were awake.”

“There’s no way it’s three o’clock….”

“I assure you it is.”

“Damn.” Jou leaned on the console and studied the display of the house. “Is there a way to get passed Seto and into the kitchen without him noticing?”

“Yes,” said Roland. With a few commands, the display of the house vanished. “But you don’t need to. The kitchen staff delivered trays approximately twenty minutes ago. There should be ample food.”

Jou stared down at the man curiously. “You’re not going to let me hang out in here today, are you?”

“No. I can’t afford to lose any more staff.”

“Ah…. This is about those three guys who want to drool over Chantel, isn’t it?”

Roland stared at the screen where alarm status changes were constantly scrolling by.

“I am sorry about that. They were just so enthusiastic, and no one on my team likes to work with her. She seems to be a bit more popular over here than she is in LA. I didn’t mean anything by it, they’re great guys—I wouldn’t have offered them jobs if they weren’t.”

Roland brought the display back up and turned to face him, obviously annoyed. “I agree, they are. They are very good at their jobs, Mr. Wheeler; you won’t be disappointed in them. Now I have to fill their positions before I begin interviewing for my replacement. Between saving your life and this, you’ve delayed my retirement back to England by another two months, I’ll have you know.”

“You’re retiring? Why?”

“I’m an old man,” said Roland, exhaustion evident in his voice. “Thanks to Mr. Kaiba and his brother, I have a half-dozen old wounds that ache on rainy days, chronic high blood pressure that doesn’t respond to medication, and I’ve been here for so long that my Japanese is better than my English. I just don’t have the energy to keep up with it all anymore—guarding the Kaibas, managing Kaiba Corp security, managing the household security…. It’s exhausting.”

“Well, I’m sorry to see you stepping down, but there’s no better way to end a career.”

“I survived,” Roland agreed. “Get going, Mr. Kaiba’s been waiting for you to wake up all day.”

“Yeah, yeah. If you need any help with stuff in the meantime, let me know. I go a little nuts without something to do.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Mr. Wheeler.”

Jou left the small control room, wondering if it was too late to retract the job offers he’d made. It was better to get on Roland’s bad side, he decided eventually, than to risk telling Mario he had to go back to guarding Chantel. Mario would probably quit.

Jou didn’t need to look hard to find the game room. It was one of the only rooms of the house that he had ever spent much time in when he was younger, and always at Mokuba’s invitation. Jou expected to walk in on a hushed, formal meeting. He expected a room full of men in suits sitting staunchly around a table discussing important things. He did not expect to see Mario sitting on the floor next to Yugi, each one holding and old play station controller. Yugi’s controller was sitting in his lap untouched. The small man was leaning back on his hands, watching a gigantic television. On the sofa behind them, Seto, Mokuba, and Honda were finishing plates of food and watching the television with occasional laughs and groans.

“You’ve picked up the sequence fast,” Yugi commented in Spanish, making Jou do a double take. “It took Mokuba two hours to get that high of a score.”

“It’s been two hours,” Mario said softly, twisting the controller to the right. Mario’s eyes flicked towards the sound of Jou’s steps. “Sleeping beauty’s awake.”

Yugi turned around and jumped to his feet. “Bout time you woke up! Where you planning on staying in bed all day?”

Jou rubbed the back of his head and tried to avoid Yugi’s gaze. “Well, come on, I think Mokuba saved some food for you.”

“I don’t eat that much,” Mokuba whined.

Yugi returned to his spot on the floor. Jou glanced at the television curiously. “What is this?”

“Katamari Damacy,” said Yugi. “A crazy old Bandai game Kaiba wishes he would have come up with. You have to roll a little ball around and collect matter to build stars. It’s fun.”

On the screen, a giant collection of stuff rolled around a city, picking up everything it touched and growing like a weird inorganic tumor. “There are people in that ball.”

“Yes! He almost has it big enough to start picking up the circus animals! Although it takes a bit more to be able to get the elephants.”

“You having fun?” Jou asked Mario. 

The other man glared at him. “I have forty minutes to beat Yugi’s high schore, go find something else to do!”

“Why? What happens if you don’t beat him?”

There was a string of Spanish swear words that had Yugi giggling like mad.

“You don’t want to know,” Mokuba insisted. “For what it’s worth, I tried to warn him. But between gin, poker, checkers, chess, boggle, and three fighting games he still hasn’t figured it out.”

“Ah…. You know what Yugi’s nickname is?” Jou asked his friend.

‘Si, si, King of Games, I know. But Mokuba beat both of us at poker and chess, so I know es possible. I just need to find the right game!”

“Don’t embarrass him too much, Yug’.”

“Oh, I’ll be nice.”

“Hi guys,” Jou wandered towards the couch and took a seat on padded arm next to Seto. “How’d last night go, Honda?”

Honda threw his head back on the couch. “You remember how much I enjoyed math?”

“I remember you scheduling a root canal to get out of a test in trigonometry.”

“Exactly. Multiply that by twenty and you have my evening. The next time this bastard pays to kill someone, he’d better actually do it so that there won’t be eight hundred pages of conflicting documents to search through.”

Seto smiled and stretched into the corner of the couch. “I told you, I am sorry that Hiroshi-san is an idiot. It’s not my fault the imbecile didn’t remember that every authorization code he changed would show up on our key capture log. I even sent out a memo about it two months before, to try to curb inappropriate use of people’s workstations. How did you sleep, Mutt?”

Jou tilted his head from side to side, letting his neck stretch a little. “Could have been better. I haven’t taken any painkiller since yesterday morning. I got sore.”

“I’ll bet you got sore,” Mario muttered in Spanish. Yugi sniggered and rocked back and forth with his hands on his knees.

“So what’s going to happen today?” Jou asked.

Honda groaned. “Today I’m waiting on bench warrants. Four members of the Kaiba Corp board of directors and Kaiba’s secretary refused to answer a subpoena this morning. Unfortunately, that means waiting for the city prosecutor to get off his ass and get in to see the judge. You know how it goes.”

“I know if Jou were screwing the city prosecutor he could probably persuade him to get it done faster,” said Kaiba with a straight face.

Honda blushed but said nothing.

“Is there more food?” Jou asked.

“Right over there,” Seto motioned to a long buffet table along the side of the wall. It was covered with silver chaffing dishes, each heated by a small canister of butane. Plates, flatware, and cups were stacked at one end, and an ornate silver coffee pot sat at the other. Jou quickly helped himself to a bit of everything he found, from European-style rolls to onigiri.

With a plate full of food, Jou returned to the arm of the couch only to find himself quickly pulled down into Seto’s lap. Honda and Yugi both glanced at them curiously, but Jou ignored them.

“So,” Jou said between bites, “That’s it? You’re just going to let things take their course? Somehow that never really seemed like the Kaiba way of doing this.”

“Oh, don’t worry too much about it,” said Mokuba, stealing an onigiri off of Jou’s plate. “Seto’s already been Seto today. He destroyed that little bitch in his press conference, and implicated Hiroshi and those idiots so deeply that any allegations they make are going to look like a poorly thought-out, desperate retaliation. They could openly accuse him of being anything from Jack the Ripper to a gay, obsessive-compulsive psychotic killer and he would still come out looking fine.”

Jou felt Seto tense underneath him. “He didn’t kill anyone,” Jou muttered, because that was the only part of that last accusation that was inaccurate. “That I know of.”

Seto huffed behind him.

“You should have woken me up, that would have been fun to watch.”

“There will be sound bites on the news, if you want to review them. I decided to let you sleep in, otherwise you would have just gotten in the way or opened your mouth when you shouldn’t have. If there is anything I know, it’s how to spin a press conference, but I can’t do it with you jumping forward and barking at everyone in the room.”

“My fucking job revolves around discretion, asshole! You’re the one who never knows when to keep your fucking mouth shut!”

“Oh, did I hit a nerve? Someone needs a nap. Or a good spank-“

Jou pulled his elbow out of Seto’s ribs, grabbed his plate and climbed to his feet, stalking away from the couch and ignoring Seto’s snort and huff.

“Guess it’s true what they say,” Seto sneered.

“Seto….” whispered Mokuba.

Seto ignored his brother. “A dog’s bark is always worse than its bite.”

Jou smiled brightly, carefully set his plate down on the floor, and charged. He intended to punch Seto into that damn couch, but the brunette moved just before Jou reached him. 

Surprisingly enough, Seto ran. By the time Jou wheeled around to tackle him, he was out the door and around the corner. Jou didn’t think before he took off after him. He shouted instead. “Get back here you cowardly little shit!”

A firm hand caught his collar as he rounded the corner. He found himself pulled into Seto’s chest, his familiar arms wrapping around Jou’s back and shoulder. Seto was kissing him before Jou could attack. He felt himself being spun around and shoved against the wall. Seto’s lips devoured his, his tongue forcing Jou’s mouth open. Jou’s head swirled as Seto kissed his furiously. It might have been a quick moment or several minutes before Seto pulled away, but when he finally did, he cupped Jou’s face in his hands and smiled. “Gods, I love you.”

“Then what the hell?” Jou snapped.

“I didn’t want an audience,” said Seto with an evil grin. “Plus, I wanted to talk to you alone, but Honda’s determined to hover today. Mokuba has requested that I let him deal with things. He wants us at Kaiba Corp tonight, along with witnesses. Shall we drag fin head along?”

“That’s not fair,” said Jou, trying to shift his hips to take a bit of pressure off his of hardening cock. “He only had that hair cut for a couple years, you know.”

“First impressions tend to stick with me,” Seto explained. “When I first saw you I thought you looked just like a puppy, the way you followed Yugi around without a clue about what was happening.”

“What? It wasn’t the whole Otogi thing?”

“That was a hell of a second impression,” said Seto. “The memory of you dressed like that had me so hard I wanted to fuck the costume every now and again. I tried everything to get that dice freak to sell it to me.”

“Gods you are such a pervert!” Jou hissed, trying to hide his blush but unable to get away from the blue eyes just inches from his face. “What time do we need to be at Kaiba Corp?”

“Mokuba said no later than eight. He gave me some pretty detailed instructions.”

“So until then we’re…?”

“Entertaining fin head, I’m afraid.”

“Alright. I’ve got some things I need to get done, though. I’ve got to call Esme and make sure our contracts are covered, and find out if the insurance adjuster has contacted her yet.”

“Insurance adjuster?”

“The guys Asano hired blew up my office. My premiums are going to be insane after this.”

“I think you’ve probably got enough capital to just rebuild, by now.”

“Not likely. Ally just became publicly traded a few months ago. We’re still a small start-up.”

Seto leaned close and licked Jou’s nose. “You’re going to hit me for this, but have you checked your stock positions lately?”

“What did you do?” Jou asked, pushing Seto away.

“I just bought stock!” Seto raised both of his hands and inched away from Jou. “But, when I buy stock it tends to make people who generally wouldn’t take a second look at a company buy every bit of it they can get their grubby little hands on. Last time I checked, Ally’s stock was worth twenty times what I paid for it a week ago.”

Jou pressed both of his lips together. “I’m not going to hit you for it. I wish you would have talked to me first, but I’m not going to hit you. I’ve still got to get stuff done, though. And damn it, I’m hungry.”

“Now that’s my Mutt! Do you want to use my office?”

“No. I’ve got my phone and laptop, I can manage just fine on my own.”

“Suit yourself then…. Do you have time to slip away with me for a few minutes?”

“Seto, I’m sore. And there’s no way you can still be horny after last night.”

“That was last night,” Seto whined. “If you’re so sore that the only way I can get laid is if you’re on top, then I am all yours.”

“You mean it?” Jou asked, slowly raising his knee between Seto’s legs.

“Absolutely.”

“Well, you still gotta wait until tonight. I’m hungry!”

* * * * *

The evening didn’t come as quickly as Seto would have liked. When it was finally late enough, Seto led them into Kaiba Corp through a private elevator from the garage, Roland trailing close behind while another bodyguard strode a few paces ahead. He led them to an open office near the executive conference room. Several other people were standing around looking tired, bored, or angry. And they were all standing around in the dark.

“Kaiba-sama,” a young woman from his research and development department hurried over, “I realize that sometimes projects cannot wait, but what was so important that you needed the head of every major department here at this hour?”

“I have no idea. I am afraid I received a message to wait right here, at this time, and in this place. Something about the investigation the police spent the day conducting. I’m just as in the dark as you… literally and figuratively. What’s going on with the lights?”

“Every light in this office has been disabled by security and they refuse to turn them back on.”

“Is my brother here? He’s the one who told me to show up.”

“And me,” the woman acknowledged. “I know the level of dedication you expect from us, but I can’t stay for long.”

“I understand. Your husband is working tonight? Were you able to find a sitter?”

“My mother was kind enough to come stay with the children,” the woman admitted. “Thank you for your concern.”

“Of course. They’re as much a part of the Kaiba Corp family as you or I. And they’re great beta-testers, too.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mokuba hurried towards them, dressed in a formal suit.

“Mokuba, why are the lights off?” Seto asked.

“Contrast,” Mokuba said quickly. “You’ll see in a moment. The room is set up, security is recording everything, and our guests are on their way to the conference room right now, although they believe the building is empty. Is the lady from the Domino Post here?”

“Yes sir,” a petite woman with a camera around her neck wove through the crowd. “What’s going on?”

“A conspiracy. My brother, and all of these good people who represent the heart and soul of the Kaiba Corporation family, have been the victims of a malicious fraud. I have been monitoring some of their meetings for weeks now, trying diligently to find out how they’ve misused over three million dollars of our company’s money. Only today, thanks to the gallant efforts of Detective Hiroto of the Domino PD, I discovered that they not only intended to fraudulently expel my brother from his position as CEO, but to commit murder in order accomplish their goals. I thought that it was time for them to explain their conduct to the whole of Kaiba Corp and the police.”

“And they’re coming here?” the reporter asked, her voice cracking.

In the hush that fell over the crowd, everyone could hear the main elevator ding. “That would be them,” said Mokuba.

Approximately two hundred feet away, passed short cubicle walls and a dozen desks, the lights turned on inside of a glass lined conference room. Hiroshi stormed into the conference room, pulling a young woman in a skirt suit around by her upper arm. He roughly threw her against the table, then wandered around to the head chair and sat down, running his fingers through his hair.

“The thing about windows,” Mokuba said in a conversational tone, “Is that when one side is well lit and the other side is relatively dark, the only thing you can see from the side that’s illuminated is your own reflection. While someone on the dark side of the window can easily see through the glass and into the light.”

“So they can’t see us,” Seto asked.

“Only if they get right up to the glass and squint.” Mokuba sat down on one of the desks and pressed a button on the intercom.

“…so utterly stupid!” Hiroshi’s voice came over the tiny speaker.

“I didn’t know he was still alive! If you had told me he wasn’t dead I never would have said anything!”

“You didn’t have to say anything! It would be enough for the police to know the contract existed, you idiot! Thanks to you they’re looking over every single record with a fine tooth comb! They delivered a subpoena to my home!”

“They won’t find anything! Every authorization code was changed and my signature is a perfect match for that faggot’s! I know I made a mistake, but it will still work out. If nothing else, he will have to admit why he’s been so obsessed with finding that man, and then he’ll have to tell the entire world what he is!”

“You think the shareholders are going to care that Seto Kaiba’s gay?” Hiroshi laughed.

“The customers will!” she shrieked.

Jou felt the eyes of most of Kaiba’s high-ranking employees watching them uncertainly. Then he felt Seto’s hand on his hip, pulling him close. “I thought that was old news. I’ve been gay since before I took over the company and its profit margins haven’t suffered for it yet.”

“Despite the scandals,” Mokuba agreed.

“Publicity is publicity,” Seto said, grinning. “I suppose if I got married then my scandal days would be behind me….”

Jou stiffened.

Seto leaned over his shoulder and nuzzled his hair. “Nakamura-san, may I have your blessing to ask Jou to marry me?”

Around them, people gasped.

“Uh….” Jou was at a loss.

“Excuse me?” Sakura Nakamura looked shocked. “My Katsuya-kun will not be pressured into a decision by some kind of awkward public declaration, even in the disguise of tradition. If you insist on an answer right now, it will be no. We will discuss this later.” Her tone was so maternal and unyielding that Seto didn’t dare argue.

"Yes ma'am," Seto said, his voice squeaking. 

Around them, a few people chuckled. That seemed to settle matters for Seto’s employees.

Three other men hurried into the conference room, all looking flustered. “Things have gone too far,” one of them said quickly. “The police came to my house today, Hiroshi! They came to my house!”

“Of course they did. This is a very serious matter; you can’t expect that you’ll sail through things without scrutiny.”

“But Jounouchi is alive!” Another one shouted. “How can Kaiba be arrested for murder if he’s not dead!”

Near them in the darkness, the reporter’s breath hitched. “They were going to murder your fiancé?”

“He’s the love of my life,” Seto said, tightening his arms around Jou.

Inside the conference room, the conversation continued. “We’ll just have to rectify that, wont we? We can still succeed.”

The three men stared at the seated man in silence. “With the police watching everything we do?”

“You’re letting due process and procedures make you paranoid! Now is not the time to act stupid. As long as we continue to maintain that Kaiba’s guilty, the police will be forced to agree that the evidence shows he’s responsible. If we get scared or paranoid, we’re likely to do or say something incriminating. For now, we’ll deal with Jounouchi and let the police sort out our dear little brat of a CEO.”

“I’ve heard he’s not that easy to kill,” said the last man, who until then had never said a word. “The Yakuza hired a professional to eliminate him in the United States, and not only did he survive, but he came here to confront them. Now it’s the Yakuza who are backing off. We don’t know what type of man Jounoichi Katsuya is, but if he can make someone like Asano back out of a deal….”

All eyes settled on Jou again.

“You are one in a billion,” Seto said with a smug grin.

“I’m lucky, that’s all. If their guy had gone for a headshot, I’d be dead. That reminds me, though, I really do need a new Kevlar vest….”

The reporter’s attention was divided between them and the conference room while she took notes at a furious pace.

“He’s a man. He can be killed just like everyone else. And if he has a man’s weakness, maybe we can even manage to avoid getting our hands dirty….” Hiroshi smiled at Kaede and motioned for her to come to him. “If he’s easily turned by a pretty face,” Hiroshi caressed the woman’s cheek. With a quick motion, he ripped her blouse open, revealing large breasts that were barely contained in a tight bra. “You’ll find this Jounouchi tomorrow afternoon, Kaede dear.” 

“Hiroshi-san, you said we were going to discuss what to do about the police,” Kaede gasped as Hiroshi squeezed her breasts.

“The police will have no choice but to make an arrest once Jounouchi’s dead. Hire another girl or two if you need to, but find Jounouchi and coax him out of the city, to the old Kaiba Corp manufacturing plant. The only thing left up there are ruins, now. Give him a proper send off, the shoot him in the back of the head.”

“A proper send off? You want me to actually fuck him?”

Hiroshi chuckled. “I think you would have learned by now that I like watching you fuck people. Text me when you’re on your way, I might come join you after he’s dead. Gozorboro always said blood makes things interesting.”

“Whatever you wish, Hiroshi-san,” the woman arched her back against the table, moaning.

“Well, I think I speak for everyone here when I say: ew!” Seto turned away from his moaning secretary. “Can we put an end to this before they have an orgy on my conference table?” he asked Honda. “In fact, just get me a new conference table!”

A few of the older employees chuckled at his antics.

“Security has that on tape?” Honda asked Mokuba.

“Security records everything in the executive offices,” said Mokuba innocently. “They don’t keep anything for more than twenty-four hours unless it’s important, but they record everything.”

“Right. Jou, you know how quick cuffs work?” Honda asked, pulling out a few pre-shaped black plastic straps, designed for use in crowd control and riots.

Jou rolled his eyes. “They’re zip ties, it’s not exactly rocket science…. You don’t have regular cuffs?”

“Only two sets and there are four of them.”

“Ah… I’ve got some.” Mario smiled. “After I found Roland’s supply closet, I borrowed a few things, and I came dressed for work,” he said innocently. He dug around his suit and pants and pulled out two pair of folded hinged cuffs, along with an expandable baton, pepper spray, a taser and a small pistol. 

Mario pulled off his suit jacket so his shoulder holster was visible, then placed the pistol carefully in the holster and gave Jou the tazer and a set of cuffs. Honda smirked and took off his jacket as well.

“Least you’ve got a duty belt to carry this shit,” Jou grumbled, tucking half of the cuffs into his pants.

Honda led the way, with Mario and Jou spread out behind him, around the maze of desks of modular corridors until he came to the door of the conference room. Then he pulled out his cell phone. First he called for backup and four cars to transport suspects, then he dialed another number. “Mokie,” he said when Mokuba answered. “Turn the lights on. I don’t want to walk in there blind.”

A moment later, fluorescent lights flooded the entire office, revealing the conference room’s horrified audience. Inside the conference room, Kaede moaned and rocked against Hiroshi, whose hands were both busy inside her skirt.

Hiroshi saw Kaiba and his employees first. He jumped to his feet, tucking himself back into his pants as his face turned first red and then purple. The other men in the room sputtered in indignation, but Kaede froze. 

Jou followed her gaze out the wall-sized window to where Kaiba stood. More specifically, to where the reporter crouched, snapping photo after photo. She screamed.

Honda acted quickly. He shoved the doors open so hard one of them cracked. “Gentlemen,” he said aloud, “I am Detective Hiroto of the Domino Police Department. It is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, although other charges will likely follow. Please stand up and walk to the far wall. Place your hands high up on the wall and stay there!”

The three men did as they were told, but Hiroshi seethed with rage and stood his ground. “How dare you! Do you have any idea who you’re talking to? What you’ve done?” When Hiroshi raised his hand, Honda grabbed his wrist, bent his arm behind him, and forcible walked into the wall, shoving his face against the same glass window that Seto and the others stood behind. He had the man handcuffed in seconds. Jou met Mario’s gaze and indicated he should deal with he closest man while Jou turned his attention to Kaede.

“Ma’am, you need to stand up and step over to that wall right now.”

“Oh, so you can have a piece too?” she snapped.

“If you don’t stand up and place your hands on the wall I will use force to make you comply.”

“You asshole! No one talks to me that way!” She lunged at Jou, trying to scratch him, but he threw her to the ground and cuffed her behind her back. She kept fighting, kicking, screaming, and spitting at him the whole time. Once Jou had her handcuffed, he had to place a knee between her shoulder blades to keep her from trying to kick him, then held her head still because she spit at him every time he came into her line of site.

“This is where I miss the LAPD,” Jou said calmly. “We had restraint chairs and spit hoods to deal with people like this.”

Honda finished handcuffing the last of the men and pulled out his cell phone again. When the Domino Police stormed the office a few minutes later, one of them brought a thin mesh spit hood with them. With her skirt over her waist and her breasts dangling out of her bra, three female officers dragged her out. One of them was the corporal who had greeted him when he first returned to Japan.

“Careful,” Jou called to her, “That one bites.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains references to implied child abuse.

Chapter 18

Jou cringed as Mokuba went flying, landing face first on one of the blue practice mats the younger Kaiba had set up in their private dojo. The way his face scraped against the blue plastic looked like it hurt.

It had been five days since Mokuba insisted they all spend their evening at Kaiba Corp, and Jou had spent most of those five days catching up with Sakura and Tenchi, watching Mario and Mokuba train, and playing phone tag with insurance agents. He also had to keep trying to calm down those clients who had discovered that their office was blown up. That was all complicated by his still healing ribs and Seto’s tendancy to roughly demand sex whenever they were alone together. Not that Jou was complaining about that. Between handcuffs, silk scarves, and ropes, Jou had been having the most incredible sex of his life. He had even stopped fidgeting, he was so damn relaxed.

Mokuba sat still for a few moments, too exhausted by the day’s practice to move. Then, through what looked like sheer will power, he pushed himself up on to his knees. He was having trouble catching his breath and sweat was pouring off of him. He had shed the top of his uniform nearly an hour before because it was saturated. Quivering with each movement, Mokuba climbed to his feet and turned back towards Mario. “Again,” he rasped.

Mario, also covered in sweat but only slightly winded, smiled and crouched down into a low stance. “Would you prefer karate? Or kung-fu?”

“I’ve come at you with karate attacks… mu tai, too.”

“Yeah, but this time I’ll stick to regular striking art blocks.”

Despite the fact that he could hardly hold his eyes open, Mokuba managed to glare at the larger man. “What good would… you can just throw me… nothing works…!”

“Well, yeah, but it’d make for a better match.”

“I don’t want to feel good about the damn match! I want to learn….”

Mario nodded. “Let’s try it again, then. You just keep missing the side-step. If you change the direction of your momentum, I wont be able to throw you, and we’ll both go to the ground. If you play it right, you’ll be in control of the fall and you’ll be in control once we’re down there.”

“Only martial art in the world where folks are happier playing on the ground than on their feet,” Jou said.

Once again they both assumed fighting stances. Mario lunged, Mokuba back peddled and tried to slip around Mario’s right side to begin a pivot-based throw. Jou saw the mistake in his footing again, and shut his eyes as Mokuba went flying once again.

When Mokuba finally managed to pull himself to his feet again, Mario smiled down at him with genuine respect in his eyes. “Let’s just go through the footwork again. Then you should spend an hour or so running through katas quickly, so you actually get some exercise out of this.”

“You think… this isn’t… a workout?”

“It’s only been three hours. I lead ten-hour seminars doing this stuff all the time. And when I’m not on a contract with Joey I teach for at least six hours a day, and then spar with my kid sister or Joey for two hours a day.”

“You do this for eight hours a day?” Roland looked horrified.

“Well, yes. What else is there?”

“He’s being honest. This is his entire life. He even limits himself to two beers a week because of how the extra calories affect his fighting.” Jou laughed and leaned back against the wall, wishing for the hundredth time that his ribs and arm were healed so he could join the other men.

Mario began leading Mokuba through the footwork again, slowly tracing out each step and repeating them over and over again.

“So Mr. Wheeler,” said Roland formally, “Have you given any more thought to my offer?”

Jou sighed. “I’ve thought about it, but I still don’t have an answer for ya. I’ve got a lot back home that I’d be walking away from. And I’d be leaving my entire company in the hands of this big lug and his sister. I’d never even have time to go back and visit, what with all of the work involved.”

“That’s probably true. But you’d also never get bored and never run out of things to do.”

“I know you’re eager for an answer, but I just don’t have one yet. I’ll make up my mind by the end of the week, though.”

“Fair enough. Speaking of duties, I’ve got to go relieve the gentleman in the control center so he can take his dinner break.”

Roland passed Seto on his way out the door. Seto knelt down beside Jou and rubbed his hand up and down his thigh by way of a greeting. “Mokuba,” Seto called out to the younger man.

Mokuba glanced up at them.

“When did you last stop to eat?”

Mokuba looked confused. He glanced at the clock but his eyes unfocused and he didn’t seem to recognize the digits on the clock face. It was then that Jou noticed the way the younger man’s head swayed.

Seto rocked back on his heels and pushed himself to him feet in a single, elegant motion. He hurried over to a small cabinet and pulled out an energy drink and protein bar. “You need to take a break.”

Mokuba couldn’t seem to find the words or strength to argue. He nodded and slumped over to where Jou was sitting and collapsed in a heap on the floor. Jou noticed that his skin was pale and clammy, and he hadn’t stopped sweating.

“You’re diabetic,” Jou said carefully.

“Just hypoglycemic,” Seto corrected him. “He also has some autism spectrum issues, and if he were remotely aware of what’s going on, he’d try to punch me for saying that out loud. Not as reliable as a glucometer, but it means he’s pretty bad.”

“And he kept training anyway?” Mario looked concerned.

Seto opened an energy drink for his brother and held it to his lips. “He tends to get a bit over-focused. I’ve been told we both do. We just have different interests. I focus on work, Mokuba, and Jou. He focuses on fighting and games.”

“Autism spectrum issues…?” Mario raised an eyebrow. “He’s incredibly high functioning, if that’s the case. I teach a few students with autism. They don’t act like him.”

“It used to be called Asperger’s Syndrome. Unlike most autism disorders, it does not impair intellectual ability. The fact that we exhibit some of the symptoms of it does not change the fact that we’re both geniuses. It just means that we tend to have narrow interests, and we have difficulty focusing on anything beyond those interests. Unless eating is a part of his routine, I have to remind him to do it.”

Mario looked genuinely shocked. 

“Our family doctor finds Mokuba’s tendency not to eat troubling, but I can’t say that I have ever had an issue with his capacity to focus. Or my own. That focus has allowed me to achieve things in the business world that most people never even dream about. Mokuba’s focus has been on fighting for some time now.”

“Does it involve the same emotional issues that autism does?” Jou asked, trying to think back to the abnormal psychology class he took six years ago. He almost remembered what the cover of the textbook looked like, but that was it.

Seto scoffed. “I would hardly call them issues. Yes, I suppose neither of us has a great deal of real empathy for others, but I don’t consider that to be an impairment. Neither of us have the same social grace as Yugi or Honda, but I don’t like people enough to want to be social. And there is nothing wrong with having a stable routine.”

Jou laughed out loud.

Mokuba’s eyes swiveled towards him, alert once again. He glanced around at the others then took the energy drink from his brother and drained it, crushing it when he was finished. Seto tossed the protein bar at him. “Fuck… what’s so funny?” Mokuba asked, clearly unsettled that he had blacked out enough to miss an entire chunk of their conversation.

“You two!” Jou said honestly. “All of the emotional shit that comes with autism and friggin’ genius level IQs to rationalize that you’re better off that way. I know I shouldn’t be amused, but everything with you two makes so much sense now. I’m not sure why I didn’t recognize it before.”

Mokuba’s glare shot towards his brother.

“He would have figured it out sooner or later,” said Seto. “He may not be as smart as me, but he is that smart. This way there is no ambiguity. Eat.”

Mokuba looked like he was about to snarl at his brother, but instead he used his teeth to rip open the protein bar. “Did you bother to tell him that he can expect a full blown temper tantrum from you if your morning coffee isn’t perfect?” He went back to eating without waiting for an answer. When he was finished, he jumped to his feet again, hoping towards Mario in a fighting stance.

“No more today. You worked yourself to exhaustion already. Do some slow kata to cool down and we’ll do more tomorrow.”

“You’re giving up? I thought you said you could do this all day?”

“I can. But if you want to make progress, you’ll stop for now. You’ll just get thrown around again if you’re too sore to move tomorrow. If you keep going now it will only slow your progress down by tearing apart more muscle fibers than your body can rebuild overnight.”

“I’d listen to the man, Mokuba. This is his area, after all.”

Mokuba reluctantly agreed. He shuffled off to bed, his shoulders and neck slouched in exhaustion.

“Got to admit, the kid’s got more heart than most. More discipline, too. I’ve taken on people from other martial arts before,” Mario explained to Seto, “Because the energy expenditure is so much higher in ju-jitsu, most of them can’t even last for a full one hour session until they’ve been at it for a few weeks. He’s good.”

“I expect better than that of him,” said Seto, as cold as ever. “Please excuse me, I need to make sure he doesn’t pass out on his way to bed.”

When the door closed behind them, Mario offered Jou a hand getting up. “Did I mention how charming these friends of yours are?”

“It’s enough to make a guy feel all gooey and appreciated, ain’t it?”

“How do you put up with that?”

Jou shrugged. “That’s just Kiaba. He used to be a lot worse. Did I tell you how we met?”

“Hm?”

“He was so obsessed with being top in the world in Duel Monsters that he came into Yugi’s shop and tried to strong arm his grandpa into selling him his most valuable card, a Blue Eyes White Dragon. Grandpa Moutou refused. Kaiba was so obsessed that he sent some goons to kidnap Yugi’s grandpa, to force him to duel for the card. As soon as he had it, he tore it to pieces right there in front of Grandpa Moutou. See, in Duel Monsters no one can have more than three copies of a card in their deck. There were only four copies of that card in the world and Kaiba already had the three he could use. Then he threatened to kill Yugi, and his grandpa, if they complained about it.”

Mario looked horrified. “Are you fucking kidding me? He kidnapped and assaulted an old man? Your friend’s grandfather? And you fell in love with this guy?”

“This is going to sound fucked up, but that was one of the most normal things that happened that year,” Jou said, before recounting some of the highlights of his dueling career. “To this day, I honestly don’t know we really battled otherworldly forces for the sake of friendship, or if we were all suffering from some mass delusion.”

“I remember some of the news coverage. Malfunctioning holograms or something, wasn’t it?”

“For the sake of everyone’s sanity, let’s go with that,” Jou agreed. “As for me and Kaiba, I’m still trying to figure that one out myself. I kind of blame Yugi. If Yugi hadn’t kept insisting that there had to be some good in him, that he had to really want friends despite all the evidence to the contrary, I don’t think I ever would have looked at him twice.”

“Oh shit,” Mario glanced at the clock nervously. “I’m late. Sorry, Joey, I gotta go.”

“What, you got a hot date or something?”

Mario blushed slightly then shook his head. He splashed some cool water on his face and picked up his uniform top, pulling it back on. “No, nothing like that, I beat Yugi in a strategy game last night and he wants a rematch.”

“You beat Yugi?”

“Yeah, at Catan, and only twice, so it’s not like it counts against all the times he’s beat me so far. “After a rematch he wants to try and old PC game… Age of Mythology, I think? He was going to load it tonight.”

Jou thought back to the strategy game. He had seen it on store shelves years ago and had stopped to think about just how much Yugi would like a strategy game that let him fight with ancient Egyptians. “You just might get your ass kicked.”

“Not the end of the world,” Mario said with a smile Jou hadn’t seen in a long time.

Jou felt his mouth drop open, ready to start shouting childish taunts and jokes about the larger man liking Yugi.

“Not a word,” Mario said sternly. “He started it, and Mokuba egged him on, so I don’t want to hear it,” said Mario, hurrying out to avoid letting Jou see the blush on his face.

Jou was left in the middle of the empty dojo, laughing to himself. He turned out the lights and headed down stairs, grabbing a snack on his way to back to the tiny control center. For the last five days, he had been trying to get into the small door in the back of the control center, to see the safe room that left Seto terrified. However, between Seto taking the week off to focus all of his attention on molesting him, and Roland being in the control center every time Jou was, demanding to know if Jou had decided to accept the offer of filling the other man’s job, Jou hadn’t managed it.

Tonight, though, he might get lucky. Seto was distracted by his brother and wouldn’t bother trying to track him down for an hour or so. Roland might still be in the control center, Jou would wait until the regular guard returned from dinner before barging in. If he had the shift rotation figured out, tonight Tanaka-san would be working. He was the same young guard who had been working on Jou’s first day of exploring the automated security system. Since Tanaka would be working for him within a matter of weeks, Jou was certain he could persuade the young man not to summon Roland the moment he walked through the door. Almost certain, anyway.

He didn’t see Tanaka in the staff kitchen, and he caught sight of Roland manually checking a motion sensor as he passed through the main hall, so he hurried to the control center, trying to act nonchalant.

“Hey,” he whispered, slipping inside.

“Mr. Wheeler, sir, good evening,” the young man stood up and bowed low.

“What’s going on, Tanaka-san?”

“Everything’s quiet tonight, sir. We heard that you’ve been offered Roland’s position. Have you decided to take the job?”

Jou shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems like I’d never have to worry about being bored again. But it’d mean I’d have to trust Mr. Delgado and his sister to run Ally for me. Even though they could manage just fine, it’s a difficult decision. And actually, since you’ve been here for nearly five years, I was hoping I might be able to pick your brain a bit about what things are like where when there isn’t a death threat to deal with.”

Tanaka glanced at the monitor for a moment. Jou saw his eyes flick down to the location of Roland’s transmitter. The chief of security had retired to his quarters on the far side of the house.

“Yeah, sure. It looks like it’s going to be dull around here anyway.”

Jou pulled up a spare chair and propped his feet up on the console. “So, five years? Have you worked here in the house that whole time? Was this your first job?”

“No,” Tanaka smiled, “I started out in law enforcement, went to the academy right out of high school. I tore my Achilles tendon before my first year was up. The city’s insurance wasn’t going to pay for the surgery I’d need to work again. They were going to promote me, give me a job as an administrative assistant, and I couldn’t stand that. So, I started working nights at Kaiba Corp, because the benefits were so good. I was just going to work until I qualified for insurance, then get my leg fixed, but then I started to like the job. There was no one to chase and it gave me a chance to learn more about automated security. Plus, it means a lot, you know, when your boss gives a damn about you. The city never cared about my quality of life, they just wanted to do what was cost effective for them. Kaiba-sama not only offers insurance that covered the surgery, but he let me take time off during work to go to physical therapy sessions. Kaiba paid for me to go to any training seminar I wanted, and to go back to school, too. By then I was sold on the idea of being a company man. I transferred over here two years ago.”

“How have things been sense then?”

Tanaka sighed. “You shouldn’t listen to what the old staff says, Mr. Wheeler. The Kaiba’s have skeletons in their closet just like everyone else, but the job is not cursed, no matter what that old cook says.”

“Cursed?”

“She’s just a superstitious old lady, Mr. Wheeler. She has no right to talk about things she knows nothing about.”

“So the job’s not cursed?” Jou parroted back the younger man’s words.

“No!” He shook his head vehemently. “It might get a bit creepy sometimes, but it is not cursed. As long as you’re loyal to the Kaibas, they will stand by you to the end.”

“A bit creepy?”

Tanaka glanced at the monitor again, his face worried. “Look,” he leaned forward, “You didn’t hear this from me, but some of the old staff… they say this place was worse than hell before old Gozoboro died. Apparently he had a thing for little boys, and for pain.”

“He hurt kids in the house?”

Tanaka glanced at the monitor, then at the entrance. “Come on,” he said quickly jumping out of his chair. He locked the entrance with a deadbolt and half-sprinted over to the small green door. Perfect, Jou thought, following him with his best sincerely confused expression plastered to his face. “I can’t be away from the desk for long, and this will show up on the alarm logs, but odds are no one will notice.”

He followed Tanaka into a dark stairwell. Yellow flood lights flickered to life as motion sensors within the stair well activated. Jou followed the quick man down two flights of concrete stairs to a gray steel door that was set into a wall made of painted cinder blocks.

“This is Kaiba’s safe room?” Jou asked.

“That’s what it’s used for now, yes,” Tanaka said nervously.

“It looks like a cell door,” said Jou. And it really did. The door was solid steel with a four-inch glass window set at eye level and a small locking hatch set on hinges near the center of the door. Jails used similar doors to pass food to prisoners who were locked down.

“It gets worse,” Tanaka whispered, opening the door with large metal key. He pulled the door open an inch, let it shut again and made sure that it opened again without the key. “Go on in,” he said, holding the door open.

As Jou moved into the room a single bank of fluorescent lights turned on. The feeling that he was walking into a jail cell skyrocketed. The room was made of white-washed cinder blocks with a single concrete bench along the length of one wall. The bench was about the size of a single bed. In the corner, a hole in the concrete with a drain set three inches down seemed to be the only accommodations made of hygiene. “There’s no sink, no water….”

“You noticed that too? Even the toughest max cell has a water fountain,” Tanaka agreed. “We don’t have a lot of time, but take a good at the bunk.”

Jou stared at the white concrete bunk for a moment before he began to notice what Tanaka had wanted to show him. He knelt down beside the bunk and stared at two spots where something had worn down the paint along the edge of the bunk. Two indentations were roughly round on top, with slight line-shaped grooves running down the front of the bunk beside them. Small crescent shapes were imbedded into the paint about two inches from the round indentations. “Gods….” Jou breathed, recognizing the slight curve of thumb nails. “How long does it take to wear down paint by hand?”

“This is enamel, not paint—it’d take a long time. Don’t forget the stains,” Tanaka pointed to a series of dark patches along the center of the bunk.

Jou felt his stomach rebel as he ran his finger over the darker areas of white. A few inches away from the patches, he could feel a rim of paint. Whatever the stains were, someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to clean them up and paint over them. What had happened to Seto in this tiny cell?

“I scraped some off, when I finally realized what it was…. A buddy of mine in the crime lab took a look at it, just a quick analysis so it wouldn’t use up too much lab time. All he could tell me was that it contained no less than twelve distinct DNA traces, mostly blood, but a trace of fecal matter, too.”

“Twelve people…?” Was Mokuba’s blood mixed in with those stains? Was Seto’s?

“It gets worse,” Tanaka wore a resigned smile, as though determined to continue without betraying how much the entire room made him want to scream. 

“What could possibly be worse?” Jou muttered.

“I looked up the designs for the old security system, when Kaiba Gozoboro was alive. He had eight monitors set up in that room up there. Seven of them cycled through cameras in different areas of the house. One of them, the only one with a VCR hooked up to it, showed a split display of this bunk. Not the room, just the bunk. He had cameras set up in every corner.”

Jou glanced towards the ceiling and saw two small wires and metal brackets poking out of the concrete in each corner.

Tanaka took a deep breath and went on. “Kaiba Mokuba comes down here sometimes, late at night, and sits on that bunk for an hour or so. Kaiba Seto avoids it. The only time I’ve seen Kaiba Seto use this as a safe room, their family doctor had to come in and tranquilize him to get him out of here because he kept attacking everyone who went near him.” Tanaka glanced at his watch. “Shit, I’ve been away too long, we’ve got to go.”

“Right,” Jou nodded.

He followed Tanaka out the door and up the stairs quickly, feeling as desperate to get away from the cramped cell as the younger guard was. When they reached the control center, Tanaka checked the monitor again, unlocked the door, and then settled back into his chair.

“That’s the worst of it,” Tanaka said glumly. “If you listen to that old cook, she’ll have you convinced that you’re going to get blown up or die in a car accident within six months of working here, but it’s not true. Those men spent four years here as boys, living with a monster. I don’t consider the fact that every guard who sat in this chair during those years is dead to be a curse, I figure it’s justice.”

“They’re all dead?”

Tanaka chewed on his lower lip and nodded. “Every security guard who ever manned this room for Kaiba Gozoboro. And if they weren’t already dead, I know I’m not the only one here who would do their best to correct that.”


End file.
